It's fine, I enjoy driving it for the quietness, and Sport mode is fun from a standing start. It'd be good if it was a bit bigger (boot and rear seats) but most of the time that's not a problem. The servicing is a bit of a pain, it isn't expensive but only selected Vx dealers can do it (and maintain the warranty - 7 years on drivetrain and battery). No road tax and no congestion charge of course, and the insurance was only a few quid more than the old Focus I got rid of.
There were only about 1200 ever sold in the UK so it gets a few puzzled looks sometimes.
I suppose I could easily work out how much it saves me on fuel but if I were to offset that against the cost of purchase it wouldn't amount to much.
It has suited me for the year I've had it, and it's value has, I believe, has gone up slightly in value to boot. I do have plans for some serious mileage across Europe in the coming year or two so it may not be a keeper, or maybe we will so a short term upgrade of the second car for that. The Ampera is fairly economical on petrol - 45 mpg min for me, as even using the ICE it gets assistance from regenerated electricity.
As you may have seen on other threads I tend to be what is known as an early adopter of new technologies. So I'd call this pretty much a first generation and there will undoubtedly be huge technical advances over the coming years but on the other hand there isn't' a lot of expensive stuff to go wrong that isn't in the warranty and the build quality seems really good so I could end up keeping it till at least it's 7 years old (which is only another 4 years).
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