Vauxhall Corsa-e 2021 electric car owner review

Will Orr drives a Vauxhall Corsa-e 100kW SRi Nav Premium 2021.

This is Will’s first electric car, he’s owned the Vauxhall Corsa-e 3-4 years and drives 10,000-15,000 miles annually. The current mileage of the car is between 50,000-60,000 miles and he achieves a 150-mile range on average, from an 80% charge.

Why did you choose the Vauxhall Corsa-e?

I had driven a Smart fortwo and I grew weary of how conspicuous it was. The Corsa-e is virtually indistinguishable from the current petrol Corsa.

Positives

It accelerates like a motorbike, I’ve outpaced motorbikes from a standing start!
Like all EVs it has cabin pre-conditioning. Where I park and the time I set off used to mean de-icing every day from September to May but I haven’t needed an ice-scraper for 4 years.
It climbs hills like they are nothing. PSA decided to use the same drivetrain in this car as the Mokka-e, so it’s particularly high-powered for a car in this bracket.

Negatives

The speech recognition system doesn’t work well, but I live in the North West of England so that’s not unusual
It doesn’t have one-pedal driving, on a level surface it slows down to walking pace and stays there
The heating system is very inefficient and barely helps when in Eco mode. The facelift model is much better thanks to the heat pump.

Compared to when you first bought the car, does your battery still charge at the same rate & do you still get the same range?

I mostly charge at home and there has been no perceptible degradation in charging speed or range over the last 4 years.

Have you experienced any faults with the car? If so, what have they been?

I hit a massive pothole on the motorway which caused £700 worth of damage to the rear nearside brake assembly. Vauxhall repaired it but I couldn’t find another garage willing or able to do the work.

What are the standout technological features of the car?

The programmable cabin climate control and charging time features. These are common with many EVs but I wouldn’t want an EV that doesn’t have these.

Tell us something people wouldn’t readily know about your Vauxhall Corsa-e

I found the shark!

What’s the biggest or funniest myth you’ve heard about EVs?

They stop working during a power cut. True, if the battery also happened to be empty but when was the last time you let your car get to empty? EV or otherwise? Worth pointing out that petrol pumps do not work without power.

What electric car(s) are you interested in next and why?

I’ve already placed a small deposit on the Renault 5. My conditions for buying a new EV were:

a) It must have V2L/V2G

b) It must have a heat pump

The Renault 5 has both of these and it looks cool.

Home charging unit

Pod Point Solo smart charger Mk 1 – It has programmable schedules and the app tracks your spending as well as the current CO2 emissions on your local grid. It doesn’t have any form of physical security feature, however, thanks to the charging schedule, if anyone were to try to use it without my permission, it would not provide a charge outside the schedule time which is usually when my car is blocking the driveway. Pod Point recently shared a free update that allows it to charge only from solar panels, but it is not currently compatible with my solar panel software.

Electricity supplier & tariff

Octopus Go tariff – currently offers 5 hours a night of low cost charging. I can charge my car to 87% for £2.98. Over the last 4 years, this has saved about £8k versus a petrol car. I would like to know when this tariff will be available without a standing charge and if this works out cheaper for me.

What public charging networks would you recommend to others and why?

InstaVolt – They’re a little expensive but very easy to use and reliable, and usually near a restaurant
GRIDSERVE – cheaper than InstaVolt and I’ve never had a bad experience with them.

Insurance

LV insurance – because they have coverage specific to EVs. I haven’t had to make a claim yet so I can’t share any useful experience.

Please itemise where you’re saving money (or not) owning & running a Vauxhall Corsa-e

The monthly payment on this model is £380. The fuel cost is about £50 a month for about 1,000 miles. This is the first year that it has been eligible for VED at £195 per year. Insurance in my area with 7 years NCD is about £1k per year. Everything but the fuel cost is comparable to my previous petrol car (although insurance rates seem to be chosen using a dartboard and blindfold), so I’m better off by about £170 per month.