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Ellesmere Port's bid to build Ampera hits snags

By Rob Golding Motor Industry 09 October 2009 15:02 Prime minister Gordon Brown’s personal crusade to get Vauxhall's version of the Chevrolet Volt petrol-electric plug-in hybrid – the Ampera – built in Britain's Ellesmere Port factory in 2012 is a dream delayed, CAR can disclose today.News that the UK Astra plant is the best in Europe, that the Astra's Delta platform will underpin the Ampera, and that Volt will be on US sale from 2010 had been taken to mean that Vauxhall would be churning out the cars in the north west within three years.But the prospect of an electric car industry growing up around the run-down Merseyside manufacturing site is not imminent, CAR has learned.'No Ampera to be built in Europe before 2015'Vauxhall insiders have made it clear that the car to be known as the Vauxhall/Opel Ampera in Europe will be an import from the US for at least five years. One senior planner told us: 'The US will be the sole source of Amperas until at least 2015.'Bob Lutz, GM's former product supremo who recently came out of retirement as a PR, said that the low value of the dollar made the US an ideal site for the manufacturing of export cars. And with forecast sticker prices of the range-extender electric car standing at a scary £35,000+, every price saving is vital to its marketability.The European market also needs time to get its electricity recharge infrastructure in place before it is worth making cars onshore in volume, GM high-ups point out.

Car collector and artist makes you look twice

As with most artists, Louis Carvell simply sees the world differently than others, and his passion for cars and car collecting led him to create a thought-provoking (and clever) body of work he entitled: “Reincarnations: Car Parts ReBorn.” The photographic collages are of spare vintage-automobile parts inspired by, “the dream cars of the Eisenhower era,” Carvell said. “These pieces are art in and of itself. Initially, I photographed them [alone] against white, seamless.” Eventually, Carvell decided to expand and refine his concept and place the parts into surrealist tableaux, to give one pause to consider these objects outside their defined roles.

GM to build Cadillac ELR in Detroit

General Motors confirmed Tuesday that it will build the Cadillac ELR extended-range plug-in hybrid at the same plant that builds the Chevrolet Volt and Opel Ampera hybrids. GM said it will spend $35 million on the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant to add the Cadillac. GM North America president Mark Reuss said production of the ELR is set to begin in late 2013.