The 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV will go on sale in the U.S. by the end of 2016, and the 2017 Opel Ampera-e will arrive in Europe shortly after in 2017. Except, there will be one glaring omission in Europe: the United Kingdom.
Vauxhall previously confirmed it would not offer the 500-kilometer range Ampera-e in the market because the vehicle has been engineered exclusively for left-hand drive orientation. That fact has left many UK fleet markets disappointed, according to Fleet News.
Sarah Gilding, head of vehicle fleet management at South Yorkshire Police, said, “This is disappointing news as the Ampera has been well received in South Yorkshire Police. A fully electric version would have been an attractive proposition to trial with a view to extending our fleet of low emission vehicles, which we are committed to doing wherever possible.”
“I certainly feel that there would have been a role for this vehicle in the police fleet, given the power output and extended range.”
Similarly, Paul Tate, commodity manager at engineering and technology company, Siemens, stated, “After 150 miles you normally consider a stop so it would be practical to consider using this vehicle on a long distance as if on a fast charge and takes around 20 minutes then that fits nicely.”
Vauxhall will have a handful of Opel Ampera-e models on hand to provide to various clients for evaluation. The data will be gathered for General Motors and will likely influence a right-hand drive introduction for the Ampera-e’s successor years away.
Comments
Vauxhall will get a right hand version of these bolt,there already working on it.
It will happen in time but such a small market has a hard time recovering the development and extra cost associated with making a low volume model that is already low volume to start with.
Once things get up to where they increase volumes they will address this but Great Britain is just the old market out for a little while.
The Bolt will not live or die on Vauxhall sales.
UK is such an important market for GM and a space in which GM should be fighting for #1 market share.
Bolt outs a post modern flagship & the great press is well worth a small to medium sized loss.
Bolt would aid Holden loose that DAD image as it competes with Toyota’s Prius.
Vauxhall, Opel and Holden are at a long term live or die cross roads and the world’s best electric mass market car is an important model. Poor planning is why many GM brands linger as damaged brands.
Britain is just not a priority.
The Bolt is not a major profit car. GM is building it to make it advance the cause of the EV program and build systems and suppliers for the future where making a profit will be a must. As it is there is little meat on the bone and with how few will sell in RHD the cost will just make a marginal profit vehicle at this price a negative profit car.
We have cities here that will Buy more Bolts than all of England.
For the first few years volumes will be modest and they will expand from there. If the volumes are large enough and the profit supportive enough they will invest in the RHD for the few that need it.
The bottom line is it is a very expensive car they are trying to sell at low cost. They will focus on where the money is at.
Holden is the same kind of case. Low Volumes mean low to no profits per investment.
The key to the Prius is their home market is RHD and they sell a ton of them in Japan. GM has rather no market in Japan. The bottom line for the Prius is if you can make it in Japan you can make it anywhere.
Hey U.K. — Brexit is a cold shoulder in case you haven’t been reading the memos