GM's Opel Ampera plug-in hybrid hits the carpet in Geneva
By Paul Miller 
posted Mar 2nd 2009 1:28PM
posted Mar 2nd 2009 1:28PM
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Easily the best looking hybird car i see so far. but can it delivery or even be product to mass market due to current GM finance trouble? GM should had 2 option either sell to foreign market or get rid of UAW.
Opel is going to split from GM (only costs 3.3 Billion €)! Otherwise the German government will not help Opel to survive!
Yeah, that's my question; will GM even be around to get this done?
2011? hehehe...always a couple years out. Never now. Always later. This will be delayed. And even if they launch on time...guess what, $40,000 for the U.S. version. Yup, $40K.
Hey, I have a better idea GM...you should build lots and lots of gas guzzling trucks and SUV's with fancy options that bring in the huge profit margins. That's a winner. Small, fuel efficient vehicles? LOL, small profit margins are for losers. Can't lose with that plan. Oh wait...
Hybird?
http://eil.com/shop/moreinfo.asp?catalogid=317556
(loves me some Mary Hansen, RIP)
Looks like its crying...
wow. is that the new X-men car?
It look a lot like acura and honda design, especially the head light and the front design. You know GM, everyone wanted to see muscle car a like become a hybird, not another cuttie.
Hybrid cars just keep getting uglier and uglier. What the hell are the engineers thinking?
That's an interesting car, although I am not sure about the >_< face it got there.
lol i like the >_< face!
the car has a very masculine look to it..
but still sexy!
if an acura and a honda had a baby..
"if an acura and a honda had a baby.."
that would be just wrong if you consider Acura as a child of the parent, Honda
It's MUCH better than what Mazda is doing to their cars... They are trying to go for some clown car award for the biggest smile ever put on a vehicle.
In case you're interested...
http://www.yosax.com/car_images/2009-mazda3-mps.jpg
It looks like an unhappy mecha-panda.
It looks like a dog with leaky eyes
Good, they are showing it now, which means it will be available in... never. Seriously, no car company has made a plug-in widely available yet. The plug-in Prius has been delayed 4 times. I am getting tired of these car companies only using hybrid concepts to green-wash their reputation, while pushing us to by their current, non-hybrid cars.
Thanks for your input, negative Nancy.
Hopefully it'll actually look like that when it's released in NA as the Chevy Volt. I just dug up a Popular Science issue from 1999 and they had a preview article on the Toyota Prius. It actually looked ok, like a stunted Corolla from that era. I don't know why they needed to ugly it up. Likewise with the car showcased in this article. It looks fine as is. Don't screw it up.
The front reminds me of a 90's cartoon car. I'm not sure how to feel about it.
speed up production, drop this on the public for 30k , put some stock spinning rims on it and you've won the car wars.
it would be cool if your spinners could actually produce electricity when it spins.
need to stop for a plug? no *goes fast then breaks*
sexxy car though, y can't they just put nice bodies on hybrids?
Can we first get Opel in NAM please...
@Aj:
"if an acura and a honda had a baby..."
--> it would be incest! However, I agree that it is strikingly similar to the Civic/TL body & profile.
Yep, looks like a previous generation TL
Its way too expensive for me, but I hope this thing is a huge success so the tech becomes cheaper.
Give it up GM. You're TOAST!
Front of the dang thing looks like a Cheetah....and I'm assuming under the hood does not justify that look. *shrugs* Looks spiffy. However I don't trust American made cars as is. There is even less trust on a car this revolutionary.
What would you pick?
A Pontiac Vibe or a Toyota Matrix?
btw opel is german, so you could trust it ^^
@Fuzz:
Both are manufactured by NUMMI, so either of the two.
Could we please get this cosmetic treatment instead of the already-previewed Volt look? This is a much more attractive car.
that face reminds me of Bumblebee in Transformers Animated.....
as they say what overseas?
i'm sorry, i just come from germany and have no clue.
never heard that before :-p
It´s British English for "hot". And people don´t say that "overseas" except for in Britain.
Did you know there is a version of English called Euro-English? An EU standard of English for political dialogue.
Last time I checked, 'Fit' was used to describe hot girls (or guys), with nice bods. Maybe the 'nice body' bit is a tad ambiguous, but describing a car as 'Fit' (unless it's a Honda), suggests some rather worrying tendencies!
The "face" struck me as someone wearing mascara was crying...with those big black globs running down their face. Very sad.
Yeah... this dude from The Watchmen:
http://www.superherotimes.com/newsarchive/Watchmen_Rorschach_Bust.jpg
The 'face' strikes me as cheetah-like. It looks far too stylishly mean to appear to be 'crying'
"and a gas powered generator for recharging the battery once depleted" ... Volt's battery does not get recharged by it's engine. The battery will run the car for 40 miles then the combustion engine kicks in to drive the vehicle on electric. Battery can only be recharged using the plug-in.
Nope. These cars use the same regenerative braking as the non plug-in Prius/Insight/LS400h/Camry/Escape hybrids to build up lost battery power. These simply plug-in to the grid overnight to account for the larger batteries that won't be filled up by regenerative braking alone.
completely wrong. The gas engine in the Volt is not part of the drivetrain, its purely there to keep the batteries topped up on long range trips, 40 - 300 miles.
Is it really that hard for gm to come up with their own car designs..... This looks way too much like an Acura IMO... does anyone else agree?
Resembles a European Honda Accord/Acura TSX to me, especially from the front. Which is a good thing :)
hell yeah, respect the car, respect it!
Is is from Norway or Sweden? It sure does have its black metal corpse paint face on!
stylings pretty boss. but dear god, why do these design approaches never translate to the u.s. market?
that car looks pissed
Looks like a french Mime artisit.
Makes perfect sense with a compact nuclear power plant!
It's not a hybrid! It's an EREV! Hybrid would imply it has two sources of energy; the gas engine charges the battery, it never powers the car.