'Top Gear' Crew Speeds Over Estonian Ice Road
Popular British television show “Top Gear” has taken the Opel Ampera plug-in hybrid for a spin over the Vormsi island's ice road.
The “Top Gear” website said that its producers had picked Estonia as the test site for the show's "2012 Green Car of the Year" both because of the Estonia's newly-inaugurated nationwide electric car charging infrastructure and because of its cold climate and good ice roads.
The team wanted to test under local winter conditions as electric cars may have a harder time operating in cold temperatures, reported the regional newspaper Lääne Elu.
The car, manufactured by General Motors, is marketed in the UK under the name Vauxhall Ampera. In the US, it is the Chevrolet Volt and in Australia and New Zealand it is the Holden Volt.