Vauxhall's new Ampera-e not engineered for UK market

By Fleet News
|
13 September 2016

Vauxhall's new Ampera-e electric car, which will be unveiled at the Paris Motor Show later this month, will not be coming to the UK.

However, the vehicle, which will be sold in Europe from 2017 in left-hand drive guise by Vauxhall's sister company, Opel, will be evaluated in the UK by the manufacturer with the possibility of right-hand-drive models being produced in a future generation.

The Ampera-e has a pure electrical range that can exceed 250 miles without recharging (purely electrical range measured, based on the New European Driving Cycle, or NEDC, in km: > 400; provisional figure).

However, even taking into account the real-world impact of driving style, road and weather conditions, Vauxhall says the car can still achieve a range of more then 185 miles under average, every day conditions.

"Vauxhall is committed to having a future EV presence in its range," said Rory Harvey, Vauxhall’s chairman and managing director.

"The technology which underpins the new Ampera-e is of great interest to us, and we will be evaluating LHD cars from next spring and demonstrating them to clients.

"The fact that Ampera-e is not an eco-luxury or second car for customers broadens its appeal greatly, but it’s obviously vital that the car we sell in our market is right-hand-drive, and that won’t be available in the current generation."

More articles on:

Vauxhall

Author: Fleet News

Comments (1)

Login to comment

Comments

DavidMG - 13/09/2016 11:15

The UK's Government-induced addiction to seriously polluting (Particulates. SO2, etc) diesel cars was most likely a factor in low sales for the previous Vauxhall Ampera in the UK - so no surprise with the UK Government still not penalising killer diesels that there's little or no scope for more ULEVs in the UK.
- 2
- 1
- Gordy - 13/09/2016 15:09
  
  Agreed. Also with the government allowing Ecotricity to charge £6 per half-hour is probably killing sales at the moment. The government (OLEV) should maintain ownership of the charging network with a private maintenance (charity status) model to maintain and improve the network. Otherwise the companies take the (expensive lump of) money and run and we'll be left with a lot of expensive knackered street furniture in a few years time which will need to go to landfill as they won't design them to be upgraded. For example, why not integrate sockets into street lamps (this would work in car parks too and avoid the need for separate wiring)?! Don't worry about the Ampera as the new 2017/ 2018 built-in-the-UK Nissan Leaf will launch with more range than this for about £17k so it can compete with the Tesla 3 (poss 350 miles and £18k start price after the grant.). The future is (LED headlamp) bright! If you're a car manufacturer and not making a cheap, 400 mile plus range, 100% electric car in the next 5 years for under £18k you may well fold in the next 20 years............
  2
  
  0
- Mr.Bean - 13/09/2016 16:45
  
  To be fair the Ampera was a poor product at many levels. Starting with the old tech petrol engine which wasn't efficient when electric juice had gone. And the biggest problem was the continues problems with the cars with many people doing early terms. Also Vauxhall had to take many back due to customers complaints. If that wasn't a problem, Vauxhall only had a handful of tech's who could check the faults and due to the large number of issues cars were not being looked at for weeks.
  0
  
  0