Articles about Vauxhall
Vauxhall: US Volt halt will not affect UK launch
Car Week
Reg Hardware Car Week
Vauxhall has denied that parent company General Motors' move to shut down Volt production for five weeks will adversely affect the e-car's UK release.
The production suspension, which will begin on 16 March, will have "absolutely no effect" on the UK launch, a Vauxhall spokeswoman told Reg Hardware. …
Vauxhall prices up Ampera e-car for Blighty
Detroit Motor Show
CES 2012 Week
Vauxhall has priced up the Ampera, the e-car it'll be putting in showrooms later this year.
The Ampera will set punters back £29,995, though that's after knocking off the government's £5000 e-car grant contribution. The car is the European version of the Chevrolet Volt already on sale in States.
Vauxhall Ampera …
Vauxhall Ampera hybrid e-car
First Look
Only the most ardent electric-vehicle advocate would argue that the current state of battery technology and absence of recharging infrastructure isn’t an impediment to the widespread adoption of the e-car.
On paper, the new Vauxhall Ampera – the European version of the Chevrolet Volt – has the perfect answer to this problem: it …
World's largest ship swallows 900 MEGATINS of baked beans
The BBC is having an Olympic swimming pool-sized field day at the news that the world's largest ship – the CSCL Globe - has docked at the Port of Felixstowe.
According to Auntie, the China Shipping Container Lines-owned behemoth "is more than 400m (1,312ft) long, the equivalent of eight Olympic-size swimming pools", while its …
Vauxhall city e-car won't be 'mini Volt'
Leccy Tech
Insiders have poured scorn on media reports that Vauxhall is working on a city e-car that will use a version of the Ampera - aka the Chevy Volt - electric drive train minus the range extending 1.4l petrol engine.
A source close to the company told Reg Hardware that Vauxhall is indeed considering the development of a city car to …
Vauxhall Ampera extended range e-car
First Looks
The first left-hand drive pre-production examples of the Vauxhall/Opel Ampera extended-range e-car have arrived in the UK. To illustrate the benefits of range extension, one of them was driven from the Vauxhall Heritage Centre in Luton to the assembly plant in Ellesmere Port where Reg Hardware was on hand to take it for a spin …
Vauxhall launches virtual backseat driver
Vauxhall has developed an in-car safety system designed to alert drivers to roadside signs, or give them a ticking off when veering out of their lane.
Vauxhall_FCS_01 Vauxhall's FCS lets you know when it spots a road sign
The Front Camera System (FCS) relies on a wide-angle camera positioned between the windscreen and rear- …
Vauxhall recalls self-combusting Corsas
Vauxhall will re-recall over 200,000 Corsas suffering a fault in the anti-lock brake system which can provoke spontaneous combustion, the Evening Standard reports.
The company last March recalled model Cs, Tigra Bs and Combo Cs with registrations beginning 53, 54 or 55, having deduced that water penetration into the cars' ABS …
UK to get Vauxhall Ampera a year after the rest of Europe
'Leccy Tech
General Motors Europe boss Carl-Peter Forster this week finally took the wraps off the final design of the Opel Ampera - aka the Chevrolet Volt - range-extended electric vehicle.
GM Ampera GM's Ampera: Opel favoured over Vauxhall?
Everything looks much as we expected from the various teaser shots that have been circulating …
Capgemini staffers evacuated by cops after London helicopter crash
Capgemini was forced to evacuate its building on Wandsworth Road and invoke its business continuity plans after a helicopter crashed 200 yards from the offices.
Around 600 sales, marketing and engineers work from the premises in Vauxhall but only security and facilities management staff had already clocked in before the copter …
GM puts the brake on Volt e-car output
Car Week
Reg Hardware Car Week
General Motors has temporarily halted the production of its Volt e-car.
Late last week, the car giant admitted it was closing down assembly of new Volts on 16 March for a five-week period. Its reason: dealers have all the vehicles they need.
In other words, too few folk are buying the $33,500 (£21,177) …
GM Volt e-car battery safe, say feds
General Motors' Chevy Volt e-car does not sport a defective design, the US' National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has judged.
This week the Administration closed its formal probe, launched in November 2011, into potential problems with the Volt's battery cooling kit.
Past test prangs had exposed the possibility that a …
Crooks sell skint fanbois potatoes instead of iPhones
Greater Manchester police are appealing for help after a number of people who thought they were laying hands on a shiny new iPhone ended up with a sack of spuds instead.
The conmen approached people in car-parks and on the street to ask them if they fancied buying laptops or iPhones, but actually gave them some totally random …
Government launches hydrogen motoring task force
The UK government hopes Britons could be motoring in Hydrogen-powered cars as early as 2014, Business Minister Mark Prisk said today.
Speaking in London at the launch of UKH2Mobility, an initiative to evaluate what Britain needs to make that vision a reality, Prisk admitted that the e-car is still part of the government's CO2 …
Silent, spacious and... well, insipid: Citroën's electric C-Zero car
Review
French car manufacturer Citroën's logo represents the pioneering gear system designed by André Citroën. The company has a long history of innovation from the Traction Avant to the amazing DS – so is Citroën's C-Zero electric car similarly pioneering?
A smart Hoxton cafe, not really an electricity showroom All that electricity …
GM declares Ampera e-car 'production ready'
General Motors will show off what it calls the "production ready" Vauxhall Ampera at the Geneva Motor Show this week - even though the e-car won't actually go on sale here for another ten months.
GM will price the Ampera at a whopping £33,995, though Brits will get £5000 of that paid by the government. And buyers won't have to …
Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid car review
Extended electric-only driving range has been a long time coming to hybrid cars but with the arrival of the Vauxhall Ampera and now Toyota’s Prius Plug-in the breed may finally shake off the reputation of vehicles that only exist because Americans don’t like diesels.
Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid car The mains attraction: Toyota' …
GM offers Volt drivers battery upgrade
General Motors has offered owners of its Volt e-car a free optional battery pack resilience upgrade in a bid to calm fears heightened after one of its cars caught fire after a crash.
GM said the upgrade is intended to reduce the risk of an impact-induced coolant leak - the cause of last year's fire.
In May 2011, the US National …
US, Euro e-car makers back 'standard' AC/DC jack
Audi, BMW, Daimler, Porsche and Volkswagen have joined Ford, Chrysler and General Motors to back a standard fast-charge connector and jack for e-cars.
The system combines a multi-pin AC port with a two-pin DC inlet. Slow, but cheap, overnight charging is handled by the AC lines, but drivers will be able to use the same connected …
Her Majesty's Secret Service opens a Q-Branch apprentice scheme
A scheme to recruit technical apprentices to work in MI5*, MI6** and UK communications spook central GCHQ*** is now open and accepting applications.
Successful Q-Branch apprentices will do paid work tackling cyber threats and organised crime, deep in the intelligence service headquarters in Cheltenham and London. The young …
E-car crash leads to battery blaze
A GM Volt e-car has burst into flames following a crash.
To be fair, the crash was intentional. It was a side-impact test performed by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in May, but has now prompted a probe into e-car battery safety, Reuters reports.
And the fire broke out more than three weeks after the …
Govt to grant £5k to e-car buyers
Buy an e-car next year and the government will pay a quarter of the asking price - up to a maximum of £5000.
You'll have to buy one of nine named electric vehicles, and your choice will be limited further by the fact that only three of them will actually be available to buy.
The e-cars subsidised by the £43m scheme include the …
ULTIMATE ELECTRIC driving machine? Yes, it’s the BMW i3 e-car
First Drive
People can sometimes behave like sheep. They will go somewhere, do something or buy a certain product simply because other people are doing so or because they recognise the brand. Call it consumer herd mentality. It’s one reason why the Toyota Prius sells so well in the States.
BMW i3 Brands Hatch bound: the BMW i3
Here in …
Tag Heuer readies €4700 Froyo phone
Would you pay €4700 (£4222) for a smartphone running Android 2.2 Froyo?
Posh watchmaker Tag Heuer hopes you will - it's working on just such a beast. There's a teaser on Tag Heuer's own website, but watch blog A Blog To Read has been mailed some snaps of the gadget and the specs.
Tag Heuer Link
Tag has gone OTT with the …
Bloke drives with knees while manipulating two mobes
A Norfolk man is potentially facing "six points on his licence and thousands of pounds in fines" after cops nabbed him allegedly driving with his knees while manipulating two mobile phones.
The unnamed 34-year-old driver was clocked earlier this month on a 70mph stretch of the A47 near Norwich during a two-week clampdown on …
Merseyside plant to punch out Chevy Volt
'Leccy Tech
The Chevy Volt looks set to be made in the UK at the Vauxhall production line at Ellesmere Port, it has been claimed.
If the plan goes ahead, Volts could be flowing off the Merseyside production line early in 2011, Autocar magazine reports.
GM Chevy Volt GM's Chevy Volt: set to ship under Vauxhall flag?
Moles from General …
Ten... e-cars and hybrids
Car Week
Reg Hardware Car Week
What started out as a dribble in 2011 is becoming a deluge in 2012 as e-cars in the form of pure electrics, range extenders and plug-in hybrids capabilities start to become ever more common. Until we see a major breakthrough in battery tech, the day will belong to the plug-in hybrids and REs, but that’s …
Police appeal for missing Taser
The Metropolitan Police ia appealing for the return of a Taser and four cartridges that were left on the roof of a police car, which was then driven away...
A Met firearms officer attended an early morning briefing at Norfolk Row, Lambeth. After the briefing, possibly focussed on coffee and a bacon sandwich, the copper put the …
Ford unwraps '2013 Mondeo'
Detroit Motor Show
CES 2012 Week
The great and good of the Ford Motor Company today whipped the dust covers off the new Fusion at the North American International Motor Show in Detroit.
Should we care? Yes, because this is the 2013 Ford Mondeo, give or take a few minor technical details.
Ford Fusion
It is based on Ford's new global C/D …
Future car tech
Car Week
Reg Hardware Car Week
You are probably expecting me to start this feature with a hymn of praise to the electric car, but I’m not. The Nissan Leaf has been on sale for the best part of 12 months and all the e-cars on the horizon, from the Renault Zoe to the Tesla Model S, are simply variations on the theme. The electric car is …
Kia Rio 1.1 CRDi EcoDynamics
Review
A Kia? Reviewed by Reg Hardware? No, we’ve not taken leave of our senses, because the new Rio EcoDynamics is being pitched as the most fuel-efficient and least-polluting car - when it comes to CO2, anyway - you can buy without an electric motor poking its nose into the drive train.
Kia Rio 1.1 CRDi EcoDynmics diesel car Not a …
Volkswagen Beetle car review
Retro car designs fall into one of two categories. The Good like the Fiat 500 and the Bad like the 1998 VW Beetle and BMW’s huge Mini. The 1998 Beetle was a particularly bad example with underpinnings that represented a nadir of VW engineering and a body that betrayed its lazy California-penned origins. It was an insult to …
Leaked Lotus doc hints at e-Evora
Leccy Tech
The evidence that Lotus may launch a leccy version of its Evora sports car is mounting, following a leaked company presentation highlighting how the model could be used as the basis for a sporty e-car.
Lotus Evora Lotus' Evora: is a leccy model be in the works?
Lotus’ engineering document outlines the Evora’s suitability as …
Ten Windows tablets
Product Roundup
Twelve months ago the idea of compiling a list of Windows tablets that you would actually want to buy would have been as impossible to do as it would have been farcical to suggest. But with the launch of Windows 8 and Windows RT all that has changed, and we are now faced with a bewildering array of fondleslabs all running …
Peugeot 508 RXH estate car review
If there is a problem with Peugeot’s HYbrid4 tech, then it’s that being modular and compact it can end up in cars that are frankly just a bit dull. After a day spent tootling around in a HYbrid4 3008 the underlying technology left me quite impressed but the 3008 isn’t a car that gets my pulse racing.
Peugeot 508 RXH hybrid …
Reg Hardware Reviews Digest
In the past seven days, Reg Hardware reviewed many products from the worlds of consumer electronics, photography, gaming, mobile communications and information technology.
If you missed anything, here are all the products we looked at this past week.
iPad
Ten Essential iPad Games
Product Round-up: Play tablet
Lifestyle …
Volkswagen Up!
Review
They say good things come in small packages, and at only 3.5m long Volkswagen’s new city car is certainly small. To put that into context it is 28.5cm shorter than the unloved Fox it replaces and only 53.5cm longer than the original Mini.
Volkswagen Up VW's done a good job with the styling
There’s no denying VW has done a …
Herts cops 'ate the evidence' at scene of crime, court told
Police may occasionally be accused of losing, abusing or even tampering with evidence – but eating it is almost certainly a first for any police force anywhere in the UK.
Such was the allegation made by prosecutors at the Old Bailey, in respect of a case of torture and intimidation alleged to have taken place earlier this year …
Hyundai Veloster coupé
Review
Tradition dictates that cars look the same from the left as the right. Not Hyundai’s new hatchback coupé, though. It has a rear door on the passenger's side but not on the driver’s. Clever idea or gimmick? More to the point, will it lure buyers away from the the obvious alternatives, the VW Scirocco and Vauxhall Astra GTC?
From …
Inside the real-world Double-O section of Her Majesty's Secret Service
Bond on Film
Thanks to the books and films we all know a lot about James Bond 007. We also know a little about the group he supposedly belongs to, the "Double-O agents" of "Her Majesty's Secret Service" - the only British secret agents with a licence to kill. But just how realistic is the idea? Does anything like the Double-O section really …
CES Week 2012: Complete Coverage
CES 2012
CES 2012 Week
The Consumer Electronics Show - CES to its friends - takes place in Las Vegas this week. It's the biggest show of its kind in the world and is the launch pad for almost all of 2012's most important technology products.
Just ahead of CES' official opening tomorrow, 10 January, Reg Hardware today starts its CES …
Govt powers up electric cars with £5k subsidy
'Leccy Tech
Anyone looking to buy an electric car in the UK could soon be eligible for a £5000 ($7500/€5600) rebate, thanks to a new government eco motoring incentive.
Ampera Cars like Vauxhall's Ampera (above) could become £5K cheaper come 2011
The subsidy, grant, rebate or whatever you care to call it will be available from 2011 and …
UK Govt to spend £100m on three-city electric car trial
'Leccy Tech
On a slightly smaller scale than the planned 'leccy infrastructure roll out Down Under, the British Government will this week announce it is planning to fork out £100m in order to test electric cars and vans in three cities.
Details are vague at the moment, but the idea seems to be to invite tenders from car makers to supply …
Sainsbury's and HP buddy up on recycling jamboree
HP and supermarket giant Sainsbury’s are asking Londoners to recycle IT kit they no longer use.
Both firms want people to bring neglected desktops, laptops, fax machines, scanners and printers to Sainsbury’s Nine Elms store in Vauxhall, London this Saturday (6 September) between 11am and 4pm for recycling purposes.
HP said it …
That's the frequency, Kenneth
Last November we kicked off a competition to identify the radio frequencies used by various bits of kit around the modern home, and now we have a winner, and some explanatory notes.
No one managed a clean sheet – of the 18 questions the maximum score was 16 and only a handful of readers managed that. But from the random hat we …
Stephen on Steve: The most important man on Earth
Legendary tech opinion-former Stephen Pie is currently in Mongolia filming for the dramatised bio-documentary of the life of J R R Tolkien, Not Another Fucking Elf – expected to be one of the mega-hits of 2012 – in which he plays the great writer's imaginary pygmy butler confidante, Boggy. However he found time to send us his …
Budget to make e-cars better for business?
Leccy Tech
Chancellor Alistair Darling’s pre-Budget report has revealed that electric vehicles will be exempt from company car tax fees for five years starting in 2010.
The news has gone down well with e-car manufacturers, a spokesman for Vauxhall - doubtless with an eye on all those plug-in Amperas it now hopes to flog to travelling …
GCHQ's spy death riddle shines light on UK hacker war
British intelligence agent Dr Gareth Williams’ last mission before he was “unlawfully killed” was to infiltrate and report on US hacker meetings, evidence given at his inquest this week has indicated.
Williams appears to have been one of a team of intelligence officers and agents sent to penetrate hacking networks in the US and …
UK cabbie clocked at 420mph
A UK cabbie has broken the previous speed record for a petrol-driven reciprocating-engined vehicle by clocking up an impressive 420mph in a 30mph zone in Newport, Gwent.
Back in 2004, sales manager Peter O’Flynn was captured by a speed camera in Cheshire doing 406mph in a humble Peugot - a record now shattered by Tom Matthews' …
2011 Ford Focus
Review
With Ford’s consumer research showing that drivers regard its cars as fun to drive and reliable to own but not particularly hi-tech, it’s playing the technology card heavily with the third-generation Focus. The new car comes loaded with sort of driver assistance kit that just a few years ago would only have been found on a high- …
