The First Ever Fully Electric Vauxhall Corsa Is Here With A 205-Mile Range
The full reveal of the new Corsa wasn’t supposed to be until June, but thanks to a leak, it seems Opel and Vauxhall have shifted their plans.
As such, the car is here in full a little earlier than anticipated, albeit only in fully-electric ‘Corsa-e’ form. It’s the same set of images that were doing the rounds on the Internet earlier this week, although us Brits are treated to a tweaked set showing the car with Vauxhall badges and the steering wheel digitally sifted to the right-hand side. Lovely.
The way it looks, then, is no surprise. But we now have all the specs the first ever ‘leccy Corsa, and they’re pretty damn good. It’s powered by a 50kWh battery pack, giving a potential 205-mile range according to the WLTP cycle. It’s possible to extend that by up to 40 per cent in Eco, Vauxhall says, although we should imagine that’ll require a saintly driving style.
When you’re out of juice, it’ll be possible to charge the Corsa-e to 80 per cent in half an hour, if you’re hooked up to a powerful enough fast charger.
The battery and single electric motor combination provide the equivalent of 134bhp and 191lb ft, making 0-62mph possible in a respectable 8.1 seconds, a good deal quicker than the current-gen Corsa GSI. More relevant for city driving though is the 0-31mph figure, which is just 2.8 seconds.
Inside, you’ll find even a seven-inch or 10-inch touchscreen-based infotainment system, depending on how generously you’ve optioned your Corsa-e. Both are Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatible.
It can be loaded to the hilt with safety gear, too. There’s lane-keeping assistance, lane departure warning, blind spot alert, two autonomous emergency braking systems and ‘drowsiness detection’. It’s not yet clear how much of that tech will be optional.
The car will be built on the same platform as the new Peugeot 208 - which will also have its own electric variant - at Opel’s plant in Zaragoza, Spain. Expect it to go on sale around Autumn 2019.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
The design is a stepdown compared to the previous model
I really like it actually, simple and sleek, but still clearly an Opel.
The front reminds me of a tiger!
2019 chavs be like
hahahah lmao - you win the Internet today
They can’t afford the electric version.
They will still somehow add a fart-can for ‘power’
Mc mental intensifies
Cool but the Honda e is the one for me
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
This is good, you’ll hear less od their fart cans now
I’ve seen some websites peg the price at somewhere in the region of £27,000 OTR.
For an electric car with specifications like the Corsa-e, it’s a fantastic price. The Nissan Leaf with it’s tiny battery pack and little in way of equipment costs the same, and a Tesla Model 3 is an eye-watering £40,000 with no finance options and, honestly? The Corsa-e looks better because let’s face it, the Model 3 is pug-ugly and ill proportioned (the up-and-coming Model Y even more so).
However, there is one MASSIVE problem with the Corsa-e: It’s a Corsa.
Regardless of how good the electric drivetrain, styling or feature-list is, getting people to stomach £27,000 for something labelled “Corsa” will be a f*ing hard sell. Given current interest rates, that’s somewhere in the region of £360 a month on finance over 60 months. Yes, the current Corsa is £139 a month and the cost of fuel will make a petrol or diesel car cost the same or more per month compared to the electric, but people will not consider that and merely scoff at such a high finance number.
PSA will easily sell more e208s than the Corsa-es. Willing to put a quid on that.
Ive seen a Model 3 the other day and was shocked to see it only has 1 tiny reverse light. It might be nit picking, but i was just asking myself: If theyre already saving on the reverse light, what else have they saved money on?
Even though the Corsa might be pretty decent value buying an EV just doesnt really make sense for most people. First off alot of people (in cities especially) dont have a private parking spot or car port to charge at home, leaving you with public chargers which is very inconvinient.
Then the financial aspect, here in Germany for example electricity costs around 30 Cent/KWh, assuming a “fuel consumption” of 16 KWh/100km thats 4,80 Euros per 100km. Not much better than a diesel Corsa, and on some quick chargers prices can apparently go up to 60 Cent/KWh.
So even with all the taxes youre saving it will take a long time to get the 10k initial price difference back in. You spend more money to get a product thats inferior in range, flexibility and value, it just doesnt make sense. And until that changes EVs will never become that big.
I disagree with the fact that PSA will sell more e208s, because in the Baltic states Opel always gets bigger respect than something labelled peugeot, citroen or renault. People are well bonded with Opel here because after Yugoslavia fell apart, the cheapest non Yugo car was Opel and people liked it and a lot of people learned to drive in these cars and bonded with them through childhood years (like me :D)
I’m an apprentice at a Opel dealership as a mechanic and I’ve never had any contact with Opels before, and the one thing that stands out to me is how good Opels actually are for their price range, from the Adam to the Insignia, they’re all good cars.
But, they’re still an Opel.
Though I like them, I would never own one, and I think that applies to most people. It’s a shame.
Krishan Ladwa, and I just wonder do they still fit lithium-ion jump starters (like these: https://bestfordriver.com/chargers/best-smart-battery-charger-reviews/), or it’s gonna be completely new thing?.. Pretty great, that is has lane-keeping assistance, lane departure warning, blind spot alert, two autonomous emergency braking systems and ‘drowsiness detection’. The future is out there.
Matt, is it a 50kW or a 50kWh battery pack?
That would have to be 50kWh battery pack as motor power is listed as 134 bhp (about 100 kW)
Unrelated: McDonalds to install charging points in all of their restaurants.