Late afternoon and journalists are looking tired. Everyone has been working hard. Energy levels are low. After all that reporting on the Opel Ampera and RAK e, these two decided to recharge their own batteries in a rather interesting way.

Sturup Race Track Malmö, Sweden: The time has come to put theory into practice: The 20 country winners of Opel’s Europe-wide ecoFLEX Experience competition are now set to prove which of them has the best environmentally friendly driving skills. The stakes are high: The grand prize is one of the first Opel/VauxhallAmpera extended-range electric vehicles, set to come to the market in 2011.

Under the motto “Green Drivers: Wanted!” the final 20 – each a representative of a European country – beat nearly 70,000 participants from around Europe with their skills and expert knowledge in eco-driving in the first two phases of the competition.

Follow us as of July 22, 2010  on the ecoFLEX Experience blog or on Opel’s Facebook Fanpage for live coverage of the event, interviews with our international contestants and insights from our  VIP coaches Manuel Reuter and bobsleigh champion André Lange.

Gherardo Corsini tells me about some of his impressions as the driver behind the wheel of the Ampera on his 550 km drive from Rüsselsheim, Germany, to the Geneva motor show. He said the transition from the battery electric mode to the extended-range mode was smooth and seamless.

Against the background noise of a busy motorshow my little handheld video camera managed to capture this short interview.

Starting with the Geneva Motorshow 2010 we will bring you live coverage and behind the scenes insights on this autoshow and future Opel and Vauxhall events.

Our intitial crew of bloggers are  Vijay  @V_I_J_A_Y (English), Dietmar @D_Thate (German), Keith @Keithchilds (English) and Stefanie @StefanieBabka (German)

We will kick things off with Stefanie and Dietmar on the road with the first European  production-prototype Opel Ampera.  The innovative range-extended electric car will go on  its very first long distance test drive from Rüsselsheim to Geneva.

Tune in this Sunday February 28th, 2010 to catch all of the action here on our behind the scenes blog or on Opel's Twitterchannel @OPELblog.

P.S. As these are our first steps with Posterous feel free to comment and give us your ideas on what you like, what you don’t and what you are interested in.