Opel readies electric version of new Karl

Before the first petrol-engined versions have even been released to the public, Opel is prepping an electric version of the new Karl city car, which should have a range of around 150km on a single charge.

According to Germany’s Auto Bild, the e-Karl should go on sale by 2018, and will feature significantly changed front styling to distinguish it from its petrol brethren.

The report comes at a time when Opel is seriously re-evaluating its approach to electric cars.

Although it promised last July to create a successor to the Ampera plug-in range extender, the recent launch of the new Chevrolet Volt (from which the Ampera borrows its hardware) came and went without a single mention of a European version. That's hardly surprising, as Ampera sales in Europe have been little short of disastrous – fewer than 1,000 were sold in 2014.

Opel has consistently promised that it has future electric car plans though, and CEO Karl-Thomas Neumann said last year that "after the eventual run-out of the current generation Ampera, we'll introduce a successor model in the electric vehicle segment. We see e-mobility as an important part of the mobility of tomorrow."

That suggests that Opel may be working on a simpler plug-in hybrid version of the Astra or Insignia, which would be cheaper to produce than the more complex Ampera and would undercut that car's disastrously high price tag.