Yahoo Autos The Electric Opel Corsa-e Is Only for Europe, but We Love It Anyway
The new Corsa is the first Opel to make its debut after Peugeot's acquisition of the brand.
It is based on the same platform as the recently revealed Peugeot 208.
The Corsa is first appearing in electric Corsa-e form, but gasoline- and diesel-powered models will follow later.
We're just gonna get it out of the way now: this new Opel Corsa won't come to the United States. But in the slightest of ways, it's kind of relevant to our market. It's the first Opel designed and engineered after Peugeot's acquisition of the brand in March 2017-and, as you might already know, Peugeot is coming back to America. Opel isn't, though, and all the new Peugeot-run Opels will no longer be sold in the States as Buicks or Chevys as they had been in the past. So the new Corsa really doesn't matter to us. We're just writing about it because we love how it looks.
It's based on the new Peugeot 208, and like the 208, the Corsa has a new electric variant. The EV is called the Corsa-e, and it's what is shown here; Opel has yet to reveal any of the gas- or diesel-powered versions of the Corsa. Like the e-208, the Corsa-e has a 50.0-kWh battery, a 134-hp electric motor driving the front wheels, and a range of 330 miles on the European WLTP cycle. The battery is able to be recharged to 80 percent in 30 minutes. Opel quotes a zero-to-62-mph time of 8.1 seconds and says that the Corsa-e has "responsive and dynamic" handling and a lower center of gravity and driver's-seat position than before, making the car feel sportier.
Post-GM Design Language
The new Corsa is helping to usher in a new post-GM design language for Opel. It's got a pretty cute face, with a slim grille, angular air intakes, and slightly angry-looking LED matrix headlights. The sides are simple, with a couple tight creases and almost-boxed fender flares, and there's a ubiquitous contrasting-color roof and a "floating" C-pillar design. The rear is simple, too, with hexagonal LED lights and a scalloped hatch. Nothing about the Corsa deviates too much from Opel's existing designs, and that's okay. It looks fresh and handsome-a good way to kick off a new era.
With a winglike layout and a tiered dashboard design, the inside is similar to current Opels as well, just with a more modernized flair. The whole thing is pretty standard compact European hatchback fare, aside from the really funky electronic shifter. Opel says the Corsa-e's interior is "fully digitalized," with a digital gauge cluster and an available 10-inch touchscreen. It's also available with leather seats and a whole bunch of driver-assist features like adaptive cruise control and blind-spot monitoring.
All of this is to say that the Corsa-e is really appealing to us here at Car and Driver. It's just too bad that we won't get it in the States. Except we might, in a way, because the mechanically identical-and even more stylish-Peugeot e-208 could be one of the first models that Peugeot brings to America in a few years' time. And who knows, maybe the Opel brand will make a return to the U.S. after a decades-long absence. But probably not.
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