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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.

GM reveals new 4.3-liter V6 EcoTec3 truck engine specs and details

The Motor City truck wars are hotter than ever with Ford, Ram and GM each recently revamping their pickup lineup. The most recent contender: GM's redesigned Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra. In addition to new exterior designs, a new engine -- the 4.3-liter EcoTec3 V6 -- will be available to complement V8 options.

CDN-Opel/Vauxhall Interactive Design Competition Enters Exterior Phase

Car Design News is pleased to announce the finalists of the interiors phase of the Car Design News-Opel/Vauxhall Interactive Design Competition. Pierin Giacomo of the Istituto Europeo Di Design in Turin, Italy, Victor Uribe, also of IED Turin, and Chiayuan Lu of Coventry University in the UK have been named as the top three entrants in the first phase of the competition. They topped the entries received from students at 36 design schools across 18 different countries in Europe.