A review of the Vauxhall Ampera has been posted over at The Independent. 'The Ampera is technically a hybrid, but a hybrid of a sort so far not seen in production. It's a plug-in hybrid, which means that the battery that powers its electric motor can be charged from the mains as you would a pure electric car. Toyota has tentatively released a plug-in version of the Prius, but the Ampera goes a stage further in its electricalness. It is moved along purely by its 151bhp electric motor and not by an engine. It does have an engine - a 1.4-litre petrol engine. But this is never connected to the driving wheels - it's used purely to drive a generator. To paraphrase the nursery rhyme, this is the engine that drives the generator that charges the battery that powers the motor that moves the car that Vauxhall built.'
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