General Motors may well swing the axe on the Vauxhall/Opel Ampera due to slow sales of plugin-electric hybrid which is also known as the Chevrolet Volt by its sister brand in the United States. GM is planning to go ahead with the launch of an updated Ampera next year and industry sources say that it will probably be the last significant product  investment GM will make. The Vauxhall Ampera won the European Car of the Year in 2012 and despite the backslapping accolades from eager to please motoring journalists the Ampera has been a commercial enigma thus far. Sales of the Ampera have been weak, 3,184 cars were sold in 2014 down by 40% from the previous year. So far this year sales have been further eroded by a 60% drop equating to just 332 cars sold in the first 5 months. A comparison of sales makes for glum reading, Germany sold just 46 Ampera’s during the first half of 2014 while Ferrari managed to shift 83 F12’s, GM has been scratching their collective heads as Vice Chairman Steve Grisky said in 2013. “All the governments in Europe said, ‘We want EVs, we want EVs,'”  “We show up with one, and where is everybody?”