2017 Opel Ampera-e Yet To Be Green Lit For UK Market
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General Motors pulled a fast one, when CEO Mary Barra announced the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV would head to Opel as the 2017 Ampera-e.
But, while we can expect the 2017 Ampera-e to be built alongside the 2017 Bolt EV at the Orion assembly in Michigan, it has yet to be confirmed for the UK market. It all boils down to business case, and right-hand drive flexibility.
According to EV Fleet World, Rory Harvey, Vauxhall chairman and managing director, the discussion is ongoing on whether the Ampera-e will also where a Vauxhall badge.
“We were one of the leaders with [the last] Ampera and range anxiety, and perhaps didn’t make the most of it. If we’re going to do something going forward it needs to have the business logic to support that.”
“There’s legitimate customer demand, which is complemented by legislation or government incentives. You have to look at the whole package and say what’s the effective distribution footprint that’s going to meet customer needs and be commercially viable,” he added.
The Ampera-e could be a welcome addition to the Vauxhall lineup to help ensure the brand meets stringent 95/kg weighted C02 averages by 2020.
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UK is GM ‘s 3rd largest market shameful if this does not go ahead – they also missing great opportunity with Corvette, Camaro and Cadillac all other niche makers provide right hand drive – why not GM ?
To support RHD you have to add weight. Zeta and G2XX both support RHD. GM has said Alpha should have, now it’s bumped to A2XX. Hopefully BEV II didn’t go the same route.
I don’t see what the problem is.
The problem is that, if BEV (the Bolt’s unique platform) dropped RHD as part of its weight-shedding from G2XX, then creating a RHD variant for Vauxhall may be quite expensive to engineer.
I’m just surprised this debate is breaking out publicly.
It’s clear to me after everything I’ve heard today, that GM would like to sell Ampera-e in the UK, but if sales fall as flat as the original Ampera, the R&D cost to create a RHD variant (even if just a few million) would be wasted.
I think they want to wait and see how Ampera-e sells in the rest of Europe, first.
GM seems to be the only automaker on this planet who develop cars for left hand driving only.
There are four island countries in the European Union, most of the countries around the Indian Ocean and Japan which drive on the left side of the road.
broblem is this how car looks on pictures. lets wait and see whats happened real life. this design language is just over design. design is not just so easy to do. peaoples must to lear to school how qality design is. dont must over design. just design little things . clean clean clean is qality not over design. opel karl and this is one ugliest cars on earth. but this is my taste to. but when peoples like then not bad but i want to good for opel and gm. i dont want that gm or opel build crap and others gm products to. pleas gm QUALITY. gm needs more quality
Rory Harvey and the GM board should monitor the EV world as the Bolt/Ampera-E will sell by the bucket load.
The original Volt/Ampera is a superb car that was and still is completely ignored by Vauxhall yet probably has the highest owner satisfaction of any car they sell.
Fun and frugal in the same sentence.
Many who were waiting for a long range affordable car were planning for Musk’s Tesla Model 3 but since the announcement of the Bolt have changed their minds.
it will hit the ground running……….Vauxhall must push to get this car into production as all other manufacturers apart from Tesla are only talking the talk.