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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.

The future of headlamp techonology – see it on video

By Richard Yarrow Motor Industry 27 May 2009 10:12 Cars of the future will drive at night with main-beam headlamps on all the time, but never dazzle another vehicle. That’s the vision of American component firm Gentex, which already makes the auto-dipping lights on the current BMW 7-series. Its engineers are working on a new technology called Dynamic Forward Lighting (DFL) which features a single main beam that floods the road with light.

Chrysler announces high school design competition

Chrysler has launched its ‘Autorama High School Design Competition 2013'. The competition calls for high school students currently attending a Detroit Public School to design a future luxury Chrysler brand vehicle they picture for the year 2030. Students must submit their designs on one sheet of 14" x 16" paper using pencils, markers or paint and include their name, school, grade level and contact information.