Tl230 Air Filters 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.

VW releases sketch of U.S.-made sedan

Volkswagen of America has released a sketch of its new mid-size sedan that will go on sale in the fall of 2011 as a 2012 model-year car. The factory currently being built by VW in Chattanooga, Tenn., will start producing cars in the spring of 2011. Sales of the mid-size sedan will be at least 100,000 units annually at full capacity.

Win a BMW winter driving course with CAR

By Phil McNamara Competitions 16 December 2013 11:30 How exhilarating is it to drift a high-performance BMW M3 on an ice circuit? Or take on punishing, snowy terrain in a BMW 4x4? You can find out for yourself, if you win our competition prize.