New! Camco Rv Vial Level 2-pack! 25523 on 2040-parts.com

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.

Ford to show four new cars at 2011 Frankfurt show

Ford will show off a new design concept car at the 2011 Frankfurt motor show, it confirmed today. It'll be one of 'four global product reveals... including a major new design concept and details of the next Focus performance car,' according to a brief statement released by the Blue Oval.

Italdesign Giugiaro debuts electric Clipper MPV

The Volkswagen T-ROC wasn't the only Geneva Motor Show concept unveiled this week that uses the Golf platform, Italdesign Giugiaro unveiled an MPV concept that managed to turn quite a few heads. Italdesign is owned by Volkswagen, so this design and engineering exercise seemed like a no-brainer, allowing the company to show off an extra concept car in an entirely different wrapper. The Clipper an all-wheel drive six-seat MPV sitting on the MQB platform, which Volkswagen is keen to expand beyond the Golf and the next-generation Scirocco, and it features two electric motors producing 149-hp each, one for each axle.