Newer, cheaper Ampera (Volt) already under development

From AutoEvolution: Before the European / British brother of GM's Chevy Volt, the Opel / Vauxhall Ampera, has even been released, GM Europe announced it will be replaced by a family of three extended-range electric vehicles within five years, that could potentially be made at General Motors’ Ellesmere Port factory in the UK, said AutoCar in a report.

While the first generation Volt/Ampera will be built in Detroit until 2015, the second generation of the extended range electric vehicles, which are already under development, will probably be manufactured in Europe.

“At that point it will make business sense to ramp up volumes of the Volt and Ampera, and to have several production sites for the ‘EREV’ model family,” said GM Europe president Nick Reilly for Autocar. “We will need one of those factories to be in Europe, and I’m very keen for it to be Ellesmere Port.”

The GM Europe official mentioned that the 2015 Ampera range will include a compact-medium hatchback, a four-door replacement of the upcoming Ampera and a crossover SUV similar to the Chevrolet Volt MPV5 concept that was unveiled at the Beijing Auto Show.

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James Martin reviews the electric Mini E

Tweet this post From the Daily Mail: Forgive me for talking shop, but this year’s been a crazy one in TV-land. The presenters of The One Show on BBC in the evenings are now the presenters of Daybreak on ITV in the mornings. The Bill was axed, The Stig was dishonourably discharged from Top Gear, Piers Morgan is on CNN and I woke up one morning to find Emma Bunton doing Lorraine Kelly’s job… Meanwhile, Jonathan Ross has been absent from our screens for most of 2010. Weird.

As for me, I’ve been mad busy all year except for a four-week break in the summer. Not that it was much of a break, as this magazine kept me at it with events at Goodwood, Silverstone and Brands Hatch, and tests of everything from hybrids to Ferraris.

Of course, I can’t complain, but it was almost a relief to get back into my normal routine – which, since you ask, includes commuting to the studio on a Friday morning and driving back late at night, past all my male viewers laying the groundwork for the hangovers they’ll enjoy during Saturday Kitchen.

Often I get a buzz out of driving around in something before it goes on sale. People do tend to notice you. But this week I’ve got something that’s not even close to being on sale. It might look like a normal Mini, but this is my first ever test of a research prototype, the all-electric Mini E. BMW has made a handful of these and given them to people to test for a year, to see how they perform under real-world, real-family conditions. Well, I don’t know how anyone else found it, but I reckon there’s a long way to go before the Mini E is ready to go on sale.

Actually, that’s not quite true – the car itself is great; it’s the battery life that’s rubbish. I found the same with the Tesla electric sports car, and as far as I know there’s no electric car that’s immune.

Let me tell you what I mean. The day it arrived, the car’s power meter told me I had 140 miles’ worth of juice. Great, I thought, and off I went to the shops and back – ten miles each way. When I got home it said I had 80 miles left. Eh? I know I failed my maths GCSE, but I’m pretty sure that’s 40 miles less than it should have been.

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