If you need convincing that going electric is the right thing to do, the Opel Corsa-e might just to do it for you. The Mokka-e is cool, the Corsa-e – well, it’s in a different league or two depending on how you feel about cars.
The Corsa-e, from a specific perspective, can be likened to an excitable terrier. I’ll tell you why. I had the key to the Corsa-e in my pocket but was going out in another car. As I passed the Corsa-e, it unlocked itself and lit up its lights and was ready to go.
I felt so guilty that I was going out with the other car and locked the Corsa, I gave it a pat on the bonnet and quietly whispered, “next time, I promise,” as I walked away unable to look it in the headlights.
If you are of a more pragmatic approach, the Corsa-e is – to date, because with Opel, there’ll be a new car along any day now – the best fleet offering from the company championing an all-rebate qualifying brand in the humble opinion of NZ Company Vehicle.
It’s simple, it’s tidy. Looks great, goes brilliantly is beautifully efficient and really, I’m stumped as to find something wrong with it.
Well, the Corsa-e is the oldest design in the new Opel stable, but even that is more a positive than a negative. Being the longest serving design – from Opel anyway – suggests there is truly little wrong with it, bearing in mind that Opel has a history of building cars from the late 1800s.
Of course, that’s not the age of the Corsa-e’s design, but the shape and size of Opel’s little terrier has served it remarkably well in the European fleet market and there is no reason an electric version shouldn’t do as well – if not better – in the land of early adopters; that’s us by the way.
Corsa-e has a 50kWh electric motor with a 100kW/260Nm output, fed by a 50kWh Lithium Ion battery which can take AC (slow charging) from a 10 amp house socket over 28 hours, just seven hours from a 7.4kW Wallbox or 30 minutes from 0 to 80 percent on a (fast 100kW) DC charging station.
Personally, I don’t have access to the two larger output chargers, but plugging into the outside wall socket was barely necessary in the week I had running around in the Corsa-e. I did use some house juice obviously, but it was so easy to do: park, pop, plug and lock. And then we were all good to go the next day.
That meant sitting in those sporty, cloth covered seats with the super side bolsters and racing stripe, pressing the go button, dropping the transmission into drive and unleashing the terrier!
That doesn’t mean its uncontrollable, the terrier is a well behaved little fellow, just keen to get out and on the road where it really thrives, regardless of the traffic conditions, open road or gridlock, its all the same when you’re driving electric and sipping juice at 15.2kW per km.
It does help to drive the Corsa-e with the B button engaged. This helps keep the battery getting some extra energy when away from a convenient plug.
Handling is awesomely responsive. The Corsa-e’s low centre of gravity, well balanced body size and wheelbase is almost a perfect mathematic equation for zero body-roll and the steering from the slightly larger than one might expect of a compact car is spot on – again for all situations, light for low speed manoeuvres and good ‘n solid when driving enthusiastically.
With it’s higher than SRi specification level, the Corsa-e has an extremely comprehensive safety feature complement with tyre pressure monitoring, blind spot monitoring, adaptive cruise control with stop and go functionality, and active emergency braking with night function, pedestrian and cyclist detection to list but a few.
There are no lack of creature comforts either, with the Corsa-e boasting a seven-inch high definition infotainment screen with satellite navigation, Bluetooth, Apple Carplay and Android Auto connectivity. The Corsa-e also has voice recognition and for all the critical driver information, another seven-inch screen in front of the rake and reach adjustable steering wheel.
Opel’s signature Intellilux (anti-glare independently pixilating) lighting is standard and very effective inasmuch as it does what it needs to without drawing attention to itself – see? A more mature electric car from Opel and that’s what makes it such a shoe-in as a fleet favourite.
Really and truly, this is a 10 out 10 electric fleet car – so easy, so useful, so normal, so economic, so stylish and so affordable. So worth your time to find out more.
