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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.

Pagani Zonda R – the Ultimate Video

Great video of the Pagani Zonda R below Well, ‘Ultimate Video’ may be slightly overstating the case, but it is a crackingly good video. As we said when we reported that Pagani were taking a Zonda Cinque Roadster to the Geneva Motor Show - and again when we told you about the Zonda Tricolore – we are almost at the end of the Zonda, with the Pagani C9 due to bow on the world stage in September undisguised (although we’ve seen plenty of Pagani C9 spy photos). So the Zonda isn’t really news any more, and the Zonda R even less so.

BMW X4 confirmed for production in 2014

More details have emerged about BMW's forthcoming X4. As previously reported by CAR, the new 2014 X4 is in essence a baby X6 - a sort of squashed coupe-cum-4x4 to appeal to outward-going types. Now Frank-Peter Arndt, BMW's board member in charge of production, has confirmed the new BMW X4 will be built at Plant Spartanburg in South Carolina, USA.