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Ford aims to improve comfort for workers on its assembly lines

Ford Motor Co. is using a digital mannequin, customized to account for physical differences across regions, to determine how to make jobs less physically strenuous for its assembly-line workers. The digital worker avatar is based on Ford's virtual North American Jack and Jill workers.

Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer estate (2010) unveiled

By Tim Pollard First Official Pictures 16 June 2010 00:01 Vauxhall has slid the covers off the new Astra Sports Tourer – a mini-me, shrunken Insignia estate for less money. The two share plenty of character and were both penned under GM Europe's design boss, Mark Adams.Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer: the lowdownThe new 2010 Astra estate puts the ultimate accent on cool looks over practicality, and its vital stats suggest it's a bit of a slouch in the sofa-shifting game. The 2685mm wheelbase is identical to the hatchback's, so the boot space stands at 500 litres, only 30 litres more than the hatch with the seats up.FlexFold (optional on lower models) lets you flop each 60:40 split rear seat down at the press of a button; stow all the rear seats flat and boot space soars to a more acceptable 1550 litres.

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.