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back to article Vauxhall Ampera extended range e-car

The first left-hand drive pre-production examples of the Vauxhall/Opel Ampera extended-range e-car have arrived in the UK. To illustrate the benefits of range extension, one of them was driven from the Vauxhall Heritage Centre in Luton to the assembly plant in Ellesmere Port where Reg Hardware was on hand to take it for a spin …

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    1. Brian 6
      Reply Icon
      Stop

      @ AC 10:35 GMT

      Well for a start u were not even brave enough to put a name to your bullshit.

      "Sorry, but I don't think I'm unusual in having a 22 mile commute (44 miles round trip) with the addition of a few site calls 80-100 mile days are the rule rather than the exception. For those who do the right mileage EVs are a great idea, but the pro EV lobby spend far too much time bullshitting us that they are the solution for everybody."

      There are several million people who live a lot closer than 22 miles from their work. None of my colleagues has a 44 mile round trip. Anyway the car is ideally suited to someone like u. Most of your journey to and from work would be on electric power, and your site calls on the IC motor. During your long site call trips the IC motor would be charging the battery as well as powering the car. For the rest of us our journey to work 5 days a week would be all electric and cheap as hell.

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  2. mmiied

    at last

    I love this idar

    to prove how geekey I am I went throught all my journies for the last eyar and sorted out how meny of them where over 40 miles and I have found that last year there was only 3 reasions I travles more than 40 miles in a day and I could could the amount of trips I made that where over 40 miles on the fingers of my hands (provided I grew 2 extra hands) I am still calcluating how much petrol I would have saved but I recon if I had owned this car last year I would have only had to vist a perol station about 4 times in the year

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  3. Lottie

    cool

    Looks nice, has good range and sounds like it's going to be decently supported.

    Can't really see any problems with it.

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  4. John Robson Silver badge

    big pedal?

    On all automatics I've driven the big pedal is for stopping...

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    More figures

    are available at http://www.whatcar.com/car-news/vauxhall-ampera-driven/250694 although they couldn't confirm them.

    It also occurred to me that once you're running on "range extension" you must get a drop in power because you can only take out of the battery what's put in minus the "conversion" costs.

    So first thing you get the battery's full delivery, but after 40 miles you only get the weaker input of the 1.4 engine, minus whatever losses occur during conversion.

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    1. The First Dave
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      @AC

      My current car is a Fiesta, admittedly not the largest car on the market, but bigger than my first car, which was a Mk11 Escort. The Fiesta 'only' has a 1.25 litre engine, but it can top 100MPH, which this one apparently can't, so why the hell does this thing need a 1.4? Does that indicate that this thing weighs three tonnes or something? Given that my 1.25 is about double what I need to cruise at 70MPH, the power is only needed for acceleration, which in this case comes from the battery, which is never supposed to go below 20%, surely a 1L or similar should be enough to keep this charge when on the move?

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      1. Nexox Enigma
        Reply Icon

        Meh

        """The Fiesta 'only' has a 1.25 litre engine, but it can top 100MPH, which this one apparently can't, so why the hell does this thing need a 1.4?"""

        The top speed is probably based on gearing more than power, and since it's a hybrid, and nobody is supposed to drive them quickly, it probably didn't make much sense to engineer it to do that sort of speed.

        The extra power from the 1.4, assuming it actually makes more than your reference 1.25, since displacement and power output aren't strictly related, probably goes to charge the battery so the engine can shut down

        Also, chances are, this hybrid, loaded with laptop batteries, weighs a bit more than your Focus, and something's got to be able get it up those hills.

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        1. Mark Boothroyd
          Reply Icon

          Top speed

          The top speed is probably limited by the management system to keep the costs down.

          The faster you go, the more current the motor draws from the batteries, higher current means you need larger and heavier cables feeding from the battery to the motor, and also produces more heat from the batteries, which has to be managed somehow.

          Limiting the speed means the batteries, cables, control systems etc. only have to be rated to a specific level, this keeps costs and heat generation down.

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  6. Steve Crook

    Where do I plug it in?

    I live in an end of terrace house. I park the car in the street as there's no garage and no off road parking. I can't run a cable across the street to charge it up.

    Is it just me, or is this going to be a problem for a large slice of the population? For all sorts of reasons, fuel cells seem like a much better prospect.

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  7. umacf24
    Boffin

    Why use an IC engine?

    If you are only charging batteries at a fixed load it seems that the special advantage of IC -- performance under variable load -- is lost. You should be able to get better efficiency from something else. Anyone fancy a gas turbine motor? -- we could fill up with JP1.

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    1. Nexox Enigma
      Reply Icon

      No turbines.

      """Anyone fancy a gas turbine motor? -- we could fill up with JP1."""

      First off, thermodynamically speaking, the turbine cycle (can't remember what it's called) is limited to a lower efficiency than even the Otto cycle (petrol engine,) which is, in turn, lower than the Diesel cycle. Turbines are good for power to weight (since they're mostly made of empty space,) but since the engines are really tiny anyway, they probably won't be able to save enough weight to make up for their lack of efficiency.

      Second, a turbine could be easily made to run on diesel, or whatever else you wanted to feed into it - I've seen some that run on pulverized coal dust, though they tend to have soot and / clogging issues. In any case, diesel fuel isn't all that different from various turbine avgas formulations.

      A turbine would be nice and quiet though, plus you could get a nice "Danger: Jet Exhaust" sticker on that hybrid to make it look fast.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Are you kidding me?

    "The car showed no signs of the expected American wallow and felt tight, balanced and composed no matter how deliberately ham-fisted I tried to be. In fact, it handles much like a Chevrolet Cruz"

    So it's a totally average and unintresting drive then? Another mass produced POS designed to get you from A to B without even thinking about what's in between. Why don't manufacturers put this technology on already decent cars and actually inspire people that enjoy driving 'in a sprited manor' to change to an alternative without having to shell out a left leg on a tesla roadster? At least it's better than a damn Prius though.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Grenade

      Because...

      ...people driving in a "spirited manor [sic]" tend to wrap themselves or others round lamp posts.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Because?

        No they don't. OK so you get idiotic 18 year olds at it every friday night, but that's because they don't have the experience to read the road and know when it's safe to drive in a spirited manner. Furthermore most of them tend to be driving possibly the most mundane car on the road; the Vauxhall Corsa 1.2.

        The thing is a fun car doesn't have to be a fast car. Ever driven a Fiat Seicento Sporting or a classic Mini? Not fast, but enormous fun to drive and there is one main reason for this. Feedback. The driver can feel what's going on and so is involved in the experience of driving. Cars like that are arguably safer too. What a Mini, safe? Yes it is in terms of primary safety, when you can feel what all four wheels are doing you are much less likely to have an accident in the first place. Cars that isolate you from the outside world really need all their secondary safety devices, their air bags, cages and pretensioned belts are more likely to be called upon if the driver isn't made aware of everything that is going on.

        Almost everybody drives in a "spirited" manner from time to time, even if it's only when they are late for work. When you do feel the need you will be much safer in a car designed with it in mind than you will in a car designed to be no more interactive than a washing machine. The idea of the car as a domestic appliance is a very, very bad one even if it is a very popular one these days. Desinging your car to be no more challenging to use than your TV is a very bad idea in saferty terms. Press the wrong button on your remote and you might inconvenience yourself, make a similar mistake in your car and you could take out a school bus queue.

        All those secondary safety devices are surely a bad idea. Your multiple air bags, pretentioned seatbelts, safety cage and crumple zones will be of no comfort to the pedestrian you hit because you weren't really involved in the driving experience.

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  9. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Happy

    Ultimately though

    I think a flywheel is *much* better behaved than a battery for a hybrid design. No real slow degradation modes and modern flywheel tech is high speed but lightweight and designed to fragment within the casing if all else fails.

    Still good start.

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  10. MrT

    I've talked with Opel's R&D about this vehicle...

    They've been tested at over 135mph and this is even claimed in some promo material out there. The ulitmate capabilities of the drivetrain are not the reason they limit to 100mph.

    However, I was asking if they would produce a version with a 3-seat back bench option in place of the twin aircraft-style seats and they have confirmed that this would not be possible because of the T-battery, which runs up the centre and behind the rear seats. I had my deposit ready, but because this will only ever be a 4-seat vehicle it will not be an option to replace my current Vectra CDTi.

    "Don't worry, we are planning a larger E-REV to follow Ampera..." - eventually admitted that although this would be physically larger, it would still be another 4-seater. I'm not a fan of loser-cruisers, but it seems they're missing the point with this tech - the next vehicle should have been an E-REV version of the Zafira (even easier if Ampera already shares platform with the Astra range) - cut the emissions on the school run.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      It's that real world thing again

      Yup I spoke to one of their marketing guys who told me that, in the real world the vast majority of cars don't carry five people very often if at all, so the loss of the fifth seat doesn't matter. Funny isn't it that the same marketing men will tell us that having three three point seatbelts on the rear bench in other models is a major selling point? Strange also that they don't seem to think that they should actually build at least one EV model to suit people who do sometimes need to carry five.

      It's sadly predictable that the marketing droids will always tell us that almost anything the R&D men have decided to sacrifice won't be an issue for 99% of people. No so long ago there was a car that I quite liked, but on looking at it in the showroom I realised there was very little luggage capacity. The salesman told me that most buyers told them it wasn't a problem because they seldom carried much guff. Well of course they do you fuckwit, otherwise they wouldn't have bought it. It's the people who don't buy that you should be asking why they didn't buy it, not asking the people who did buy why they bought it.

      Or how about the iPhone 4 and it's antenna? Apple tell us it's not a problem because most people use a case or don't hold their phone that way. Well of course they do it's the only way to get their phone to work.

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      1. MrT
        Reply Icon

        I even suggested...

        ... that they remove a few cells from the battery to lower the T-bar around the centre seat area to make the bench fit - would prob reduce elec range by about 3-4 miles, but at least I could fit the kids in. It's got less people capacity than our Peugeot 206... but if we're going down the CO2 per person I've taken a Citroen GS for a (short) drive with 12 in which must push a 4-up Ampera close for being eco friendy, if not quite so friend friendly...

        I quite like the new Meriva (it's roomy, *can seat 5*, and is brilliantly easy to access with those feature 'suicide doors'), but they've no plans for E-REV version of that either. It seems they think that they've got to pitch it at the middle management Audi market in value just to claw back profit, rather than going for the higher volume, lower profit per unit route that would benefit more people - remove the emissions from the school run and short shopping trips and things will be a lot more pleasant.

        It's an interesting vehicle, much more so than current hybrids because it offers a proper alternative tht's been thought through for today's infrastructure - and in the future it can be adapted to LPG or even hydrogen as a fuel source for the IC engine.

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  11. Giles Jones Gold badge

    Waste of time

    Isn't the whole point of electric to reduce pollution and reduce reliance on oil?

    Petrol engine = pollution.

    Petrol engine needs oil.

    The whole idea with electric is you can recharge it using electricity which can be produced with numerous means. Petrol can only be made from oil.

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    1. MrT
      Reply Icon
      Pint

      wider range of fuels

      Spark-ignition engines can run on all sorts of fuel, not just oil-based - wood alcohol or similar stuff derived from sugar cane is used in some world markets (Brazil, for example). BMW even adapted their V12 7-Series to run on hydrogen, and offered a limited number of drivers the chance to own one for a while as a test-bed, burning it directly in the engine instead of converting it to electricity in a fuel cell.

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  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fuel Cells As Usual

    Seems nobody has brought up fuel cells this time.

    Usually when somebody mentions fuel cells somebody on here will start to list the shortcomings of hydrogen as a fuel. From the dangers of it to the environmental problems of using precious water to make it, not to mention the generation of the electricity needed to make it.

    OK they are problems, but the pro battery types who make these arguments seem to forget that batteries are much more of an environmental disaster than hydrogen, manufacturing and recycling is not exactly kind to the environment, and the electricity to charge them has to be generated just like it does to make hydrogen. Safety? Well hydrogen can go bang in a big way but we're not talking massive volumes of the stuff in the same way as, say, petrol. The volume of hydrogen used to cover a given mileage is much lower than the volume of fossil fuels used to cover the same mileage. The stuff doesn't need to be transported by road since it can be made on site at the filling station as long as you can get water to the site. Only relatively small storage tanks would be needed at the filling station as it would only be a buffer between the cracking plant and the pumps. Of course getting the water to the filling stations needn't be such a big problem. It doesn't have to be drinkable mains water (although it does need to be fairly clean) so it won't be causing a hose pipe ban. Laying pipes to the filling stations? Why bother? there would be plenty of redundant petrol tankers and their drivers out there. And don't forget that if the cars' store the exhaust water generated by their fuel cells they could dump it at the filling stations to be converted back into hydrogen. OK so I know it wouldn't be a lossless process, but it would significantly reduce the amount of water needed.

    So why are battery cars seen as a better alternative than hydrogen fuel cells? I can only assume that the battery manufacturing industry has a much larger lobbying organisation than the fuel cell industry.

    Oh and don't forget hydrogen fuel cells aren't the only fuel cells around. If hydrogen is such a problem for you then you could always try and alternative fuel.

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    1. Chemist
      Reply Icon

      Re : Fuel Cells As Usual

      Unfortunately making hydrogen from water by electrolysis is only ~50% efficient even using high temp./pressure processes. Depending on how the electricity is generated the efficiency could be down to ~16% by the time the hydrogen is put into the vehicle ( less if it needs to be liquified)

      Fuel cells are only ~50% efficient so the overall efficiency would be ~~5%. Now I agree if the electricity came from renewables or nuclear there would be no CO2 but the electricity consumption would still be enormous for any sig. number of vehicles

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Batteries

        How efficient are batteries then?

        The interesting thing is that batteries get less efficient the faster you charge or discharge them. The particular problem here being that what most people see as the biggest problem on EVs is charge time. This is either because they want a car with very long range or because they can't charge overnight so need to be able to charge quickly at filling stations. The fun part about this being that if you want a fast charge you will pay more for a fillup than you would if you trickle charged.

        Long range means even an overnight charge would need to be at very high current. Many people will not be able to charge overnight because they park on street and don't have access to power. Don't give me that crap about installing loads of charging points on every street. who is going to pay for them? How is all the additional infrastucture going to be installed? Who's going to fund that? How will they be secured so that not just anybody can use the power and the person who does use it gets charged correctly? Even if you can answer all those questions, and you can't answer the one's about funding*, it will be a long, long, long time coming. A Hydrogen fuel cell infrastructure could be implemented much more quickly.

        And like I said it doesn't have to be hydrogen. You can build fuel cells to run on all sorts of stuff. Probably cow burps if you can find a way to harvest them.

        * In the words of the last government "there's no money left".

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      2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Reply Icon
        Happy

        @Chemist

        "( less if it needs to be liquified)"

        When I looked for info on this I found an estimate that it would take 1/3 of the energy per Kg available in Hydrogen combustion to chill it to a liquid which might help your calculations.

        And not forgetting that at present Hydrogen filling stations in the US seem to convert LNG to Hydrogen in a catalyticaly assisted thermal process to make the Hydrogen. its role as a "Clean" fuel and energy carrier is *theoretical* at best.

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  13. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Happy

    AC@11:51

    "Seems nobody has brought up fuel cells this time.

    Usually when somebody mentions fuel cells somebody on here will start to list the shortcomings of hydrogen as a fuel. From the dangers of it to the environmental problems of using precious water to make it, not to mention the generation of the electricity needed to make it."

    People (myself included) mention them because they are *all* valid points.

    I'll skip a re-cap of the physical properties that make Hydrogen a *very* bad energy storage medium which have been repeated at length and which you don't seem to understand.

    "The volume of hydrogen used to cover a given mileage is much lower than the volume of fossil fuels used to cover the same mileage."

    This suggests you don't understand the difference between mass (Kg) density (kg per m^3) and energy density (Mj per m^3). If you knew what you're talking about you'd know why you're wrong.

    What is your objective. No Carbon increase or re-cycle Carbon that's already in the air? Hydrogen is the only *fuel* that manage the former (no Carbon in it) while *lots* of options exist for the latter. Reduce re-fuel time compared to trickle charge? Some more modern battery chemistry/hardware designs already do. *Any* fuel cell tech should do this, such as Methanol,LNG LPG. Save natural resources? Well

    Batteries, fuel cells and flywheel storage systems are *all* viable methods of electricity storage but it's *how* they fitting into *existing* infrastructure and meet the needs of users that will determine *which* is successful.

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  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nice car

    Lots of heated discussions about elec vs petrol, failings of battery technology and so on, but capitalism always finds a way. The simple reality is that petrol is cheap. If you want the electric car idea to fly, gotta make petrol more expensive, and until someone does, there will always be an army of nae-sayers asking "Why the fuck bother?". Once petrol is expensive enough, the cheapest alternative will prevail (so long as law enforcement authorities don't think it'll rip holes in the space-time continuum).

    All this green stuff when sold from a financial POV is just nonsense anyway. There are two problems, if there is a saving, then punters will only have more money to spend on foreign holidays, plastic iPhones and so on, cancelling out any benefit. Second, if journeys get cheaper, people will only take more of them. You want to save the environment, the best approach is probably to go kill yourself.

    My advice? Stick with the petrol. Use it wisely. When it gets too expensive, find something cheaper, or work from home. I suspect in the days of horse-drawn carts, the early cars were a solution looking for a problem, and the 'leccy cars of today are bit like that. Perhaps sci-fi films are to blame.

    But if you insist....

    Lead-acid is nasty, but easy to recycle and the charging technology well understood, and we already have the infrastructure for this, a privately-owned car with 30 mile range is the best bet for the shopping/school trip coupled with a community-maintained petrol car pool for the longer ones. Virtually impossible to sell to the modern punter, but it's probably the greenest solution you can have right now.

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