GM trying to sell Opel, but will keep Ampera (the Opel Volt)
Opel Ampera - Click to enlarge
With all the confusion and fast-moving news coming from GM troubles (Saturn hybrids? Say what?), there is one thing you can count on: GM is keeping the Volt. Of course they're keeping the Chevy Volt - that was never in question - but things were just a tiny bit less clear regarding GM's possible sale of Opel. Whatever happens with the brand, the Opel Apmera, the European version of the Volt, remains in GM's hands. Earth2Tech got the goods from both GM and Opel spokespeople, who both confirmed that the Ampera is still on schedule to start prodction in late 2011. This shouldn't come as a surprise, the Ampera is pretty much the Volt with a different badge, but it does put the car's plug-in hybrid technology on that "GM needs it to survive" pedestal that the Volt seems to find itself on so often these days.
Gallery: Opel Ampera
[Source: Earth2Tech]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Throwback 11:50AM (5/06/2009)
Makes sense, why sell the technology you have bet the farm on? I still don't see how GM can survive without a European operation.
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Rick 12:17PM (5/06/2009)
Here's the depressing script for the next few years for Volt lovers
Volt eventually will have it's roll out, sales will be disappointing and every sale will represent a financial loss to GM anyway.
GM being in mess will have no choice but to suspend production of the Volt after being refused more government bailouts and after having an extraordinary number of battery complaints.
Then somebody will make a movie.
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paulwesterberg 1:14PM (5/06/2009)
You forgot the part where they take the volts from their owners, truck them to the middle of nowhere and crush the bejesus out of them.
win39 12:36PM (5/06/2009)
Wow. A microcosm of what is wrong with GM. Chevy Volt is stodgy and boring looking almost indistinguishable from the current lineup of kind of cheap looking mid size Chevies. Definitely not externally desirable. Opel version is exciting and fun to look at and definitely says there is something different under the hood and might be worth some extra money.. What they ought to do is sell GM, keep Opel and open Opel factories in the US. But Rick probably gets it right.
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Luke 4:06PM (5/06/2009)
Win32,
Wow, the grill and the lighting make that much of a difference to you?
Yes, the Cruze-based mules look like, well, a Cruze. Which is Chevy's next attempt at cheap people's car after the Cobalt. I'll be curious to see how well it competes with the Civic and the new Ford Focus.
Anyway, the evolving design Volt looks like is something that I'd be happy to drive. I'm 30, I'm not into racing or sports cars, and I like to leave a modest impression on people I meet in real life. My girlfriend and I currently have a 2004 Toyota Prius, and a 1998 2.5L Ford Ranger in the driveway of our house, and we like the capability provided by each one. So, I'm probably more like the average car buyer than the typical car enthusiast (I'm assuming that you're a enthusiast). In other words, even if the Volt doesn't appeal to a guy like you, it will appeal to a guy like me -- if the price is reasonable.
Lastly, as someone who has a friend over in Iraq right now (and I have several more friends who've served over there), I'll pay a sizable premium to not buy oil from the middle east. I really hate it when geopolitics impinges on the fun of driving somewhere with the windows open on a nice day!!!
win39 5:25PM (5/06/2009)
I am not sure why you brought up the invasion and occupation of Iraq. I have to admit that it took me about two weeks to figure out that Colin Powell was lying to the UN, but i have been solidly against that obscene, hidden subsidy to the oil companies.
That does not have anything to do with the ineptness of GM which I was talking about. If you do not think that styling sells cars you do not understand marketing or the auto industry. If a $40K Volt looks like GMs answer to the Honda Civic they will not sell, any more than that ugly Ford they called an Edsel. More recently Ford's first Taurus outsold Honda Accords for the first time. They changed the styling to more closely resemble something which a scuba diver would encounter while spear fishing in the ocean and the sales losses were so bad that they had to do an accelerated remodel.
If the Volt does not sell because it looks like a Cruze which costs half as much, GM fails. After all you bought a Prius which makes a fashion statement instead of a Civic Hybrid whose real world economy is the same, but it looks like a gasoline economy model. If the economy fails or groans along in semi-coma, no one will be buying the fuel efficient/alternative energy automobiles which will get us off our dependence on foreign oil. My point about selling GM and keeping Opel had to do with the fact Opel consistently makes competitive looking and performing cars with great fuel economy. They may have a problem competing with VW and the rest of the German industry, but they could do just fine here.
Instead GM is dumping their formerly innovative Saturn division and keeping trucks, and the geriatric gas hoggy divisions of Cadillac and Buick. Brilliant. Not one product I can see in the near term to stimulate the mass sales they need to lower their CAFE figures or even to save the corporation we would need in a real national emergency to build the jeeps, trucks, armored personnel carriers and tanks we might need.
periscope 1:13PM (5/06/2009)
Message to GM: Take a front mask of Opel Ampera and put it on Volt! Pronto!!!
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bt 2:18PM (5/06/2009)
@Throwback GM still has Vauxhall in the UK.
@Rick Sorry Prius-lover, but if you go by the size of it's internet fanboy following, GM will every Volt it can push out the door--at least as long as the $7,500 subsidy is there. It will take them a few years anyway to ramp up production just to satisfy the early adopters. Why buy a Prius when for 5k more you can be oil free (for the 80% of American's that drive within the Volt's electric range)?
@win39 If you want sex appeal, you won't find it in ANY green car short of the Tesla cars which are far more expensive. I'm sorry, people may be disappointed that the Volt concept aesthetic got shaved down in the wind tunnel, but the Volt still looks a hell of a lot nicer than the Prius (which looks like the eggshell spacecraft from Mork and Mindy).
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Luke 4:25PM (5/06/2009)
@Rick Sorry Prius-lover,
Huh? I'm not Rick, but there's a Prius in my driveway and it's a wonderful car. I'll happily be called a Prius fanboy. The Prius is a small economy car, so it isn't for everybody or every task, and it does have a few quirks --, but, overall, it is an excellent automobile. This particular one has 100k miles on it, and it's still going strong.
I also read http://www.gm-volt.com daily. I'd love to own a Volt, and I sincerely hope that the Volt makes the Prius obsolete. But the Volt doesn't exist as a manufactured consumer vehicle yet -- and, until the Volt is actually produced, there is no possible way that it can make the Prius obsolete.
My point is that you're creating a false dichotomy. I like both cars -- both the very real Prius whose HID headlights I have replaced recently, and the very hypothetical Volt whose pictures I can look at on the Internet. Ricks prediction is reasonable and probable, given the bumbling institutionalism that GM has exhibited over the last 30 years (my entire lifetime). I'm hoping that they get their act together and they start making innovative and practical cars. Some of their newer conventional cars from Buick and Cadillac are substantive steps in that direction -- but they're still conventional. If the Volt turns out to be what we all hope it'll be, then it really will be a new era.
bt 6:33PM (5/06/2009)
@Luke
I agree the Prius is an excellent, capable vehicle and even after the Volt releases, will still make sense for a certain segment (such as rural folks that drive long distances daily). I was just sticking up for the proposition of the Volt--if it matches it's expectations, it should eclipse the Prius as the "best choice" for the average commuter who can't tolerate a two car solution (BEV for daily commuting and a hybrid for longer trips).
PeterG 9:49AM (5/07/2009)
You forgot another group that Prius is still the choice for that have zero use for the Volt:
Apartment Dwellers who don't have a personal plug to recharge on.
So Volt is good for home owning people who don't drive long distance every day who want to spend an extra $10000 to $20000 to plug in their car so they can save about 300 gallons of gas/year (IE doing this for other than economic reasons).
While the plug in crowd is very vocal, I think they are also quite small, the mainstream will continue to increase the number of Prius sales.
bt 7:55PM (5/07/2009)
@PeterG: If you don't have a plug, well you COULD just choose to run the volt in extended range mode at a supposed 50mpg clip, which is better than the Prius EPA. Many states and major cities have been committed to wiring up dense urban neighborhoods, but until then you're doomed to chug down foreign oil. Where will apartment dwellers be in ten years when everyone else is driving pure EVs? Your objection here isn't with the Volt, it's with all plug-in electric vehicles.
As for the your wildly inflated cost, I scooted over to the Toyota website and configured a new Prius at 27k with features comparable to the Volt (which will come supposedly fully configured much like the early gen Prius). GM has pledged a 35-40k release price, combined with the federal electric vehicle credit of 7.5k (which Prius does not qualify for) comes to 27.5-32.5k Which is more like a 5k premium, not the 10-20k you absurdly claimed. No one here is saying the Prius is a bad vehicle, it's just that newer technologies are coming down the road, and the Volt is one that will make sense for a large segment of the US green car market.
TheRookie 2:36PM (5/06/2009)
@bt
Vauxhall in the UK doesn't make its own cars - they just sell rebadged Opels.
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Chris M 5:12PM (5/06/2009)
I'm not totally familiar with GM Europe, so I have to wonder - if GM sells Opel, Saab and Vauxhall, will they have ANY production facilities left in Europe? If not, they'd have to produce them elsewhere, and the shipping costs could become a major problem.
And what about that plug-in hybrid that Saab was developing, the one GM management wanted to hide so they could brag about their Volt concept? Will GM sell that with Saab, or will they gut Saab of its potential plug-in Volt rival?
I'd have to wonder who would want to buy Opel or Saab without a really great plug-in "halo" car to promote it with.
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Swede 7:23AM (5/09/2009)
As for your question, nope, that is the entire GME and all production facilities. GM would have to make the car in Mexico or Korea but either way, importing cars from outside the European Union is more expensive than making them in the Union, which is why the asian manufacturers set up shop in Europe.