Half of all drivers experience road rage

MORE THAN half of the drivers in the UK say they have been the victim of road rage at some point in the past 12 months. The same research showed that 11% of drivers in the UK have used full beam in an effort to annoy another driver, while 4% said they had threatened to damage another person’s vehicle. The study by the Van Discount Company showed that women over the age of 50 were the most common target for road rage, with 40% of women in this age bracket saying they experienced road rage at least once a month.

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.

Chrysler offers to double cash-for-guzzlers incentive on most '09 models

The Chrysler Group is offering consumers $4,500 on most of its 2009 models, doubling the cash-for-guzzlers incentive offered by the federal government. "Double Ca$h for Your Old Car," offers up to $4,500 cash or 0 percent financing for 72 months on qualifying new vehicles, even if the consumer's trade-in doesn't qualify for the federal incentive. The program starts Thursday, July 23, and runs through August, Chrysler announced Wednesday.