New Vauxhall Corsa and Corsa-e make joint public debut

The Corsa-e will feature three drive modes – Normal, Sport and Eco – with Vauxhall claiming the 211-mile official range can be extended by up to 40% in Eco drive mode. The hatch also features a regenerative braking system.

New technology includes automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, intelligent speed control, lane keep assist and traffic sign recognition. Top-line models feature a 10in touchscreen infotainment system with connected navigation services, alongside full LED matrix headlights. 

The new Corsa is the first of a raft of Vauxhalls and Opels aimed at rejuvenating the brand with new levels of design integrity and engineering. 

Opel-Vauxhall vice-president of design Mark Adams told Autocar at the Corsa’s unveiling that the new model was engineered to the most robust standards in the company’s history, despite a massively shortened development programme after PSA bought GM’s European arm in 2017 and started afresh. 

A GM-based Corsa was all but finished by that point and it could have been launched, but the ‘toolbox’ of newly available PSA technology, including access to BEV hardware, plus licensing costs that would have been payable to GM, meant starting again was “a no brainer”, according to Adams. 

“We hand-picked our most experienced designers and engineers,” said Adams. “This is not a committee car.” He added that Opel’s design and engineering team had learnt new methods on the way but that the company couldn’t work within such a timeframe with every new model. “You’d kill people with the intensity of the work,” he said. 

PSA sees Vauxhall and Opel as a good fit with its French brands, noting that their respective British and German heritage means they’ll achieve sales volumes in their home markets that Peugeot, Citroën and DS won’t be able to match. 

PSA CEO Carlos Tavares has overseen a surprising turnaround of fortunes in an extremely short space of time. Opel-Vauxhall returned a £750m profit last year, its first in two decades. That has come from a mix of cost reduction, extra buying power and a reduction in discounting rather than a notable sales increase. 

Both Adams and new Vauxhall CEO Steve Norman say Opel-Vauxhall has much more autonomy within the PSA Group than under GM, where it made products that sold not only in Europe but also, with Chevrolet, Holden or Buick badging, in other regions. 

“You can’t micromanage success”, says Adams, who added he was pleased to find that PSA CEO Carlos Tavares was “extremely focused on brand values”. That approach has allowed Opel-Vauxhall to deviate from other PSA brands and inject its own DNA into the Corsa’s design. 

Deliveries of the new Corsa start at the end of this year in internal combustion form, with the Corsa-e electric variant arriving a few weeks later. The new Corsa-e can be ordered from this week and will cost £26,490 including the government grant.

Q&A with Steve Norman, Vauxhall CEO

Is the Corsa representative what of we should now expect from Vauxhall? 

“It’s what the brand has needed for some years now, and this will be the precursor for the new Mokka, which will be much more radical still in terms of design.”

Is it correct that the small platform means a pure-electric option, while large platforms can have a plug-in hybrid powertrain? 

“For the moment, yes. What’s interesting in the Corsa-e is that there won’t be an option with less than 136bhp. One of the things that concerns people is that Vauxhalls have become a bit staid, and we need to inject something back into it. This will be quite a fast car.”

Do you think there’s a shift in how the business runs day to day? 

“I wasn’t there in the GM days but the people who work for me were – they think the change is total. They are given freedom to act, that’s the big difference.”