OPEL Ampera Better then CHEVY Volt? according to a american?

I like the looks of the Ampera slightly better too.
Given Ampera's have hold/halden mode, would choose Ampera over Volt.

 

The Ampera looks nicer - though there is a difference in what is nice depending on which side of the Atlantic you live. I think we have different tastes.

The Ampera does have the 'hold' function which makes sense and is obviously an easy add on.

But, the Ampera is about £2,000/$3,190 more expensive than the European Volt.


That's a lot of money for a different front end and a switch.

 

I think in America it just isn't needed. It was only introduced on the European versions as many cities in Europe are introducing zero emission zones, and this hold function enables the Ampera/Volt to comply. Not sure how the Plug In Prius stands? Does it too have this option in Europe?

I do find it weird that in Europe we have one extreme to the other - a clean, zero emission zone in the center of a city and a stinky, smelly full of diesel soot zone on the outskirts where everyone lives.

 

Actually in a way that is good b/c then the people might say hmmm maybe we should clean up the emissions.

 

I think PiP will have that option in Europe too. EV<->HV swich was not put in the test fleet cars intentionally, IMPOV.

 

Its needed/wanted in the US, but something in how the EPA does testing kept the US Volt from having it. (Since they do various "worst-case" testing for vehicles with different modes, I can only imagine the use of Hold-mode would have made the emissions or economy testing worse. Maybe that worst-case testing was less of an issue for the PiP and so they did not mind having EV/HV button.


Wow I did not realize the volt/ampera price difference I'm not sure that I'd pay 2K extra for the styling.

 

Thats what I always thought too, but apparently the EPA did not use the switch to turn the EV off in the PiP testing or it wouldn't have even gone the 6 miles it got rated for AER. Maybe know the protocols are better known we'll see hold on a future model year.

 

My understanding is the PiP's EV-switch tries to keep in in EV but blends at HV speeds, while hybrid mode tries to hold battery level constant -- i.e. HV == hold.

Actually I expect they did use EV mode to get the 11 miles, otherwise the car would have been in hybrid mode the whole time and would have use far more gas. The 6 miles is where, in the EV mode, the ICE came on anyhow.

But if the issue is not range, but emissions, then since the PiP uses the ICE in both CD and CS range, and since its very clean, the difference between HV and EV might not matter.


I hope so, I've written by congresmen and EPA. I'd hope the initial ideas/rules were just based on fear about ensuring people could abuse it, but that ignored how people could use it to make things better. I want it on new models and ideally a fix for my car (tell me some the numbers to push to the ECU and I'll hack up an andrioid app to implement it)