Europeans love supermini sized cars, since they are very practical, small on the outside, big on the inside. The upcoming Opel Ampera-e clearly fits into the category.
In Germany, the Opel Ampera-e will have a starting price of 34.950 € for the entry-level version, while the top of the line version will be priced at 39.680 €. Both prices have the environmental bonus of 4.380 € included.
The Opel Ampera-e will be available for test drives at 40 Opel selected dealerships across Germany, starting late June.
It’s still not clear if GM and LG Chem will produce enough cars for Europe’s demand, since only 10.000 are planned for this year, yet in Norway already more than 4.000 units have been ordered.
When GM and LG Chem realize that this electric car is much better suited for Europe than for the USA, they might not only increase production, but also improve it a little for this market. At least if PSA asks for it.
Now that PSA owns the Opel brand, we have to wait and see how much interested they are in electric cars. If PSA is really interested in electric cars, at least a heat pump and a 3-phase (11-22 kW) internal charger should be fitted into the Opel Ampera-e in a future model year.
With the price of the Opel Ampera-e finally revealed, it leaves us to think were the upcoming new generation Nissan Leaf will position itself. The Nissan Leaf is a bigger electric car made to succeed worldwide, produced in four factories (USA, UK, Japan and China) in larger numbers. If I had to guess I would say that the price will vary from 29.000 to 36.000 €, depending on the battery version.
Without discounts, the rest of the bunch – Kia Soul EV, BMW i3, Ford Focus Electric, Hyundai IONIQ Electric and Volkswagen e-Golf – will have a tough time selling in high numbers. It just leaves the Tesla Model 3 – in the upper market – and the Renault Zoe – in the lower market – to join this electric car race, with the Chevrolet Bolt EV/Opel Ampera-e and the new Nissan Leaf going for the broader market.
Electric cars with better range is great, but let’s not forget that high price is still a barrier. As much as we would like to fool ourselves, 35.000 € is not the price of an affordable car. The best selling car in Europe is the Volkswagen Golf, which has a starting price of 17.850 € in Germany. How much longer will it take to have good electric cars with this price tag? Will the “rest of the bunch” – that I referred to previously – have their prices drop to this level soon?
What do you think? Is the Opel Ampera-e price competitive? How will the competition react?
More info:
Leaf
20 Apr 2017this car will have no real impact in Europe besides Norway if there are really only 70 (!) units planned for Germany in 2017.
see:
http://www.goingelectric.de/forum/opel-ampera-e/neuigkeiten-zum-ampera-e-t22544-200.html#p513978
Pedro Lima
20 Apr 2017Aren’t those 70 units the ones which were already registered?
http://www.kba.de/SharedDocs/Publikationen/DE/Statistik/Fahrzeuge/FZ/2017_monatlich/FZ10/fz10_2017_03_pdf.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2
You can see that from January to March, this year, 68 Opel Ampera (Ampera-e) were registered in Germany.
That’s more than Norway, where only 15 units have been registered so far.
http://www.itanywhere.no/Elbil-reg.php?car=Opel%20Ampera-e&mnd=%25&year=%25
There are 10.000 units planned for this year for all Europe (Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany).
Leaf
20 Apr 2017yes, seems so, other people in the thread are talking about 400 cars for Germany. not many in any case 🙂
Joao
20 Apr 2017What does the lack of an heat pump mean in an EV? Also, does the Ioniq have this heat pump? And what about the 3-phase internal charger on the Ioniq, does it have one as well?
Thanks in advance 🙂
Asle H
20 Apr 2017No heat pump = more energy used to keep the driver and passangers warm when the outside temperature = cold.
Ioniq has 1 phase only according to my findings.
Ioniq comes with a heat pump as an option in markets with cold winters.
Joao
20 Apr 2017Thank you so much for the explanation! 🙂
Alnair
20 Apr 2017Comparing tag prices between an EV and an ICE has not much sense. What’s important is total cost of ownership, and brand serious about EV should remark this.
John
20 Apr 2017Most people just don’t have that money up front! The price is a huge barrier no matter what the TCO is.
Erik
23 Apr 2017+1! Dutch base price is 40.995,- and there are no government incentives.
Jonas Jovial
20 Apr 2017The price could be 1€ and still be useless, since it’s just a compliance car and the availability is ridiculous
Ray smith
20 Apr 2017Lets be really generous and say the bolt battery costs 10,000, so add that to the golfs 18,000 and the volt should be around 28,000. Instead they price it from 35,000 which is just price gouging. Either the big car companies start charging fair prices for ev’s or the chinese will fill that gap.
João
20 Apr 2017At a conservative $225 per kWh (it’s more like $250 atm), a 60kWh battery actually costs something like $13.5k… Also, economy of scale does not quite kick in for their production level. That is why the gigafactory and the Model 3 are quite important: to bring the price of batteries down and to challenge big automakers to mass produce EVs in the millions…
p-run
20 Apr 2017At $250 per kWh, 60kWh pack costs max €14k. Add €18k for “golf” and its €32k without incentives. Ampera without incentives costs more than €39k…
Ricco
21 Apr 2017Golf are produced by millions directly in Germany for decades…
jhm614
21 Apr 2017But remember, GM is paying LG $145 per kWh for the cells.
http://insideevs.com/gm-chevrolet-bolt-for-2016-145kwh-cell-cost-volt-margin-improves-3500/
Ray smith
21 Apr 2017But if they really wanted to compete and take market share from golf’s e.t.c they would price the Bolt competitively, get a load of sales and then as production really ramps up they make more profit per car.
As it is it is just a compliance car.
GM might think they are being clever just selling a token amount of ev’s but what they might be doing is squandering a technical lead over their competitors.
When their rivals match them and beat them on price and sell their cars in vast numbers they may regret purposely selling at the low volume/high profit model.
Terawatt
22 Apr 2017A well reasoned post, and I agree with most of this. But I’m disappointed the price wasn’t lower – I expected pricing to be as aggressive as in Canada.
Ray smith
23 Apr 2017Lets hope gm see the light as they really do have a car which could take the market by storm if they price it right
Mário
24 Apr 2017I think this price is set by demand/available, not really related to production costs.
Ricardo
2 May 2017Bem, para quem estava à espera de 42000, não está mau de todo