This is the first teaser picture of the Opel Ampera, Opel's version of the upcoming Chevrolet Volt, and is to be fully revealed at the Geneva Motor Show in March. But of course, it is a teaser picture, and reveals nothing because of artistically dimmed light - until IN YOUR FACE digitally enhanced the image, creating this exclusive new vision of Opel's new electric headliner.

The essentials of the Ampera are pretty much the same as the Volt - you get a 65km fully electric range, and when that is all used up, a petrol combustion engine kicks in to charge the lithium-ion battery. It's called "Voltec", but whatever. This car's more environmentally than any Prius, and that rocks. From this picture, we can see that when it comes to shape, the Ampera is pure Volt - but with a drastically altered face. Actually, that's a lie. It appears to be drastically altered, but on closer inspection, we can see that the headlights remain unchanged. But the overall look is very different, so I call that a success.

In fact, we've seen this face before, on the Opel Flextreme Concept of 2007 - which was also an electric car - so I've provided a picture of that too, so you can get a better idea of how the Ampera will look. I realise that this picture of the Flextreme is an illustration, but in this illustration, the alloys of the Flextreme have been lifted and plopped right onto the Ampera, heightening the visual connections.

More importantly for us Aussies, the Ampera is the first look at what the Holden version of this stunning electric car might look like - replace the Opel badge with a Holden one, because the word on the wire is that Holden will take this instead of the Chevrolet version.

And providing it's priced well enough, I'm sure I'll put my money where my mouth is. I would buy an Ampera, that's for sure - I've been a petrolhead for too long, I reckon. It's about time I became an electrichead.

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