There’s been a fair amount of speculation to date about how serious GM actually is about the Chevy Bolt, with most signs pointing to the new electric car offering being taken very serious by the company. That speculation seems to be confirmed somewhat by the recent announcement that a rebranded version of the Bolt will reportedly be offered for sale in Europe under the Opel brand starting in 2017.
The rebranded electric vehicle (EV) will be known as the Opel Ampera-e, and will reportedly be “affordably priced”, according to the company.
While announcing the model at the CAR Symposium in Bochum, Germany recently, the CEO of GM, Mary Barra, commented: “GM and Opel have always been convinced that electric cars will play a defining role in future mobility. The game-changing technology of the Ampera-e is a significant step toward realizing that vision. Our new battery electric car is also another boost for Opel’s reputation for making innovative engineering widely accessible.”
The CEO of the Opel Group, Dr Karl-Thomas Neumann, commented as well: “Electric vehicles (EVs) have the potential to make a significant contribution to climate protection and emissions reduction. The new Opel Ampera-e will open the road to electric mobility by breaking down the barriers of high price and short driving range.”
As one can see, there doesn’t seem to be any really noticeable exterior changes made to the new Ampera-e, as compared to the Chevy Bolt. The rebranding looks to be pretty straightforward.
For more information on the Chevy Bolt (and thus the Opel Ampera-e) see: “Chevy Bolt Is Here.“
Ok this would kill of the present version of leaf, bmw and vw lineups. They’e just got osborned.
With all the talk of autonomous cars – I would think we would see cars with side video mirrors by now! The Bolt EV / Ampera-e would be significantly lower drag (as would all vehicles) if they had side video mirrors.
Ironically, the Bolt EV (and presumably the Ampera-e) does have a rear view video mirror.