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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.

Audi Q7 3.0 TDI quattro 204PS arrives in the UK

Audi Q7 3.0 TDI quattro 204PS now available Audi has launched the Q7 3.0 TDI quattro 204PS in to the UK with 39.2mpg and reducing CO2 to 189g/km. Starts at £39,995. A less powerful engine for the Audi Q7 isn’t the first thing that jumps to mind as the right way to go, but Audi thinks there’s a market.

Second new London taxi of 2014 unveiled

LONDONERS had better prepare themselves for another new generation of taxi, just days after Nissan confirmed its own assault on the Black Cab market. The plug-in hybrid Fraser-Nash Range Extended Electric Metrocab is capable of more than 75mpg and less than 50g/km of CO2, and is expected to cost no more than a current Hackney carriage. The company says the vehicle could save cabbies £30 to £40 per day in running costs and can go longer between fill-ups.