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Stop starve technology

I am really interested in the Vauxhall/Opel Ampera. The benefits seem inescapable. However, given a scenario where the car is used on the daily commute of a round trip of, say, 30 miles and the odd shopping trip of 20 miles thus always running on the battery, how is that engine going to survive without ever being run - except when it's asked to kick in on the annual 260 mile trip to the farm holiday in Cornwall? Surely this must be a technical issue, as we all know that the last thing you should do to an engine is not run it. Any thoughts - or are you already privy to GM's plans to combat this potential reliability issue?

Asked on 5 December 2009 by

Answered by Honest John
I don't know. I think you may have put your finger on a fatal flaw. Toyota will jump the gun with a plug in Prius III before the Ampera or
Volt ever get here anyway, and we'll see what faults that develops. There is a huge benefit in winter in not starting an Internal Combustion engine just to drive a short distance. But, as you write, the IC engine will still need to be regularly run. Plug-in hybrids could start suffering unintended consequences, just like diesel cars with DPFs do.

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