Some thoughts on the new Vauxhall Ampera

Update - 11 Feb 2010:
This post has been updated as I misquoted the UK price of a Vauxhall Ampera. The list price is £33,995, and the government's subsidy of £5,000 means the customer pays £28,995.

From the Vauxhall website (http://www.vauxhall-ampera.co.uk)
We estimate that an extended range electric car will save about 1,700 litres of petrol per year based on 40 miles of daily driving (15,000 miles per year).

Or if you drive 60 miles per day (21,900 miles per year) you could save about 1,900 litres of petrol annually (compared to a vehicle that averages 36.2 mpg).

The Ampera can be plugged into a standard 240-volt/13 A household outlet for charging. We estimate that it will cost less than £0.85 at night for a full charge that will deliver up to 50 miles of electric driving.*

* Based on UK average prices for fuel and electricity. Those may vary by market.

From the Vauxhall Ampera Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/VauxhallAmpera)

The Ampera is always powered by the electric motors that drive the front wheels of the vehicle and can travel up to 50 miles - dependant upon the way it is driven - on a single battery charge. When the battery charge has been depleted, the vehicle switches into Extended Range mode whereby the 1.4 litre engine kicks in to generate electricity to continue to drive the wheels for up to another 310 miles on a full tank of fuel - a tank takes 35 litres of petrol. When the Ampera is in Extended Range mode the engine will run at a series of constant RPM depending upon the amount of electricity determined by the vehicle's requirements, e.g. at 30 mph the engine will run at a lower constant RPM to when the car is driven at 70mph.

The generator does not recharge the battery. The way to recharge the battery is to plug the car it into a 13A socket and fully recharge it in less than four hours.


Some of my thoughts

1) Running costs

The fuel tank takes 35 litres and the car can do up to 310 miles on a tank. That is... about 40mpg. On a 350-mile journey, the first 40 or so miles are on the battery charge, then the remainder on 35 litres of petrol. At £1.30 a litre, that is £45.50. There is also the cost of the battery recharge, £0.85 approximately. Total is £46.35.

My Skoda Octavia diesel can do 55mpg. So on a 350 miles journey it uses 29 litres, which at £1.33 a litre is £38.57. And no battery recharge cost. 

£46.35 v £38.57 for the same journey, hmmm.

The cost of a new Ampera is to be £33,995 including VAT after before the Government's subsidy of £5,000. After subsidy the price is £28,995.

A new Skoda Octavia L&K 2.0 litre diesel estate would cost me today £23,590 including VAT. For that, you get a car with a much higher spec than the Ampera.

Let's say I DO save 1,700 litres of fuel a year using an Ampera compared to my Octavia. At £1.33 a litre for diesel, that is the equivalent of £2,261. Just on that alone, I'd only recoup the extra purchase cost over four two+ years. If fuel costs go up, which they will, the break-even point comes down well below four two years. When I say "just on that alone", I mean I have no figures on comparisons of servicing costs and tax/insurance between the two. I expect these costs to be less for the Ampera than the Octavia.

2) Emissions

Something else to consider. During that four year period, the Ampera will generate much less greenhouse gases than the Octavia.

Vauxhall claim:

Preliminary Fuel Consumption / CO2 emissions according to regulation EC 715/2007 and regulation EC 692/2008 (weighted, combined): 175mpg / 40 g CO2/km

(This is on a journey that includes solely electric running and also running in ER mode.)

Skoda claim:

2.0 Litre TDI 140ps diesel = 129 g CO2/km


So for a 350 mile journey (563 km), the Ampera emits 22,520g CO2 and the Octavia 72,627g CO2, or over three times as much. 

I think I would prefer to have NO emissions!

Extending the range of EVs

One of the big issues with the use of electric vehicles (EVs) is how far they can go between charges. This is known as their range. The Nissan Leaf can go about 100 miles on one charge, as will the new Ford Focus EV. The Chevy Volt (Vauxhall Ampera) will have an on-board petrol motor to recharge the batteries if they run down before the car can be plugged in. (The Toyota Prius isn't an EV, it's actually a hybrid electric/petrol-drive car.)

What is needed is a radical solution to permit vehicles to go further on electric power alone. It ought to be implemented before too many EVs are around. It could also take advantage of some of the existing refuelling infrastructure.

My idea is to standardise on quick-change batteries.

New EVs would be designed around a standard battery format which would be located under what is now the hood or bonnet of a car. (The electric motors will be at each wheel, as most EVs already have.) The battery would probably have a range of 100 miles or so. Being under the hood/bonnet, it would be designed with fittings for quick removal and replacement.

When the battery charge gets low, you would drive the EV into what are now gas/petrol stations. Instead of fuel, you would pay a fee to have your depleted battery replaced with a fully-charged one. There would be some form of robotic crane at this battery station to swap batteries in a few minutes. It would then be the responsibilty of the fuel station staff to recharge depleted batteries.

The electric companies would wire up the battery stations with high-voltage power lines and quick-charge (4 hours) points in ranks to handle lots of batteries simultaneously. There would be a national pool of batteries distributed to fuel stations by battery manufacturers.

EV owners would never actually own vehicle batteries, just pay a fee for each use, which would include a full charge. Vehicles could travel unlimited distances with battery stations located within about 100 miles of each other, drivers just pausing to exchange batteries as needed.

I realise there are a number of issues with this concept, but it MUST be worth considering.

Some ideas to investigate:

- battery design standardisation;
- the cost of batteries;
- how the supply of batteries would work;
- standardising battery location in EVs;
- devising an automated method for swapping batteries;
- how to ensure battery stations get adequate electricity supplies;
- rolling out battery replacement technology to existing fuel stations;
- the payment model and unit cost for EV battery usage.

Well, that's the bare bones of the idea. What do you think?