Opel Ampera unveiled

Saw a programme on German TV related to the Ampera tonight. Apparently even the german government is concerned about GM coming up with this tech when all the other german manufacturers don't have an electric car in their line-up. Im not sold on electric yet, shitty range, heavy large batteries, takes ages to charge.... Maybe thats a reason aswell the german automobile industry hasn't come up with something yet.

I liked the concept of hydrogen that james may showed us with that honda clarity thing, I don't know much about the details but isn't hydrogen the better option? I take it it's hard to produce for cars? ? I think that whichever tech, electric or hydrogen it should come from renewable energy
 
Hydrogen is hard to produce and to storage too. Electric is the right way to go.
 
Like a big 'H' for honda on the front.

Sheet metal looks almost identical
 
Hydrogen is hard to produce and to storage too. Electric is the right way to go.

Hydrogen is easy to produce - the problem is that the easiest method is energy intensive to run.

Storage isn't easy, but that's a mostly solved engineering problem.

Battery electric is not the right way to go. :p
 
The general shape of these types of cars is a challenge. It's amazing how critical the little changes can be. There will be a new Prius wagon coming which won't weight THAT much more than the current car, but will get ~10mpg less on the hwy. Mostly just because a wagon shape isn't as click as the current shape.
 
Hydrogen is hard to produce and to storage too.


Actually producing Hydrogen is very easy, just drown the two ends of an Cable into a glass of water, and give it some electircal pow????r, and if it doesn't set fire to your Fusebox in your Basement, your Water turns into Hydrogen.
 
Well not so far.

Anything that requires electricity to replace hydro carbons will not work - I am sorry it just will not.

I rather like the look of either car, certainly miles ahead of any other hybrid in terms of 'car-ishness' They're the first ones that don't seem to sacrifice all the accoutrements and most of the design of a normal vehicle for mpg-craziness.
 
That interior is positively the most hideous thing ever devised.

Well, that's all you can get for just 42.900 Euros... I mean, you surely cannot expect more than cheap plastic for a price as low as that, can you?

On the subject of fuel cells I stumbled on a project, that could solve the storage problem of hydrogen in cars: The hydrogen is chemically coupled to a carrier liquid called "carbazol". It is extracted within the car through a catalyst and then being pumped out and recycled at the next fillup. So far this is at a very early stage but car makers here obviously show big interest in the project, as does our ministry of traffic, which will probably give money to support it.

I didn't find an English article on it but here's the German version: http://www.spiegel.de/auto/aktuell/0,1518,771516,00.html

This could be interesting, because the existing infrastructure can be used for it.
 
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It's interesting that it appears that both the Volt (as a Holden) and the Ampera (as an Opel) will be sold here. Actually, I take that back. It's not interesting at all and I don't give a shit. But I thought GM was meant to stop doing this sort of thing.
 
They just don't know how to stop cutting their own throat.
 
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