A recent press release from Opel has confirmed that the vehicle will be based on the CMP platform and get an electrified version.
The environment-friendly Opel Corsa will get the “e” prefix to its model name, following in the footsteps of the eVito, eSprinter, e-Crafter and e-Golf. The trend is so obvious, you’d think European manufacturers are in some sort of conspiracy over giving their EVs that prefix.
The regular Opel Corsa series will benefit from the French CMP platform, while its all-electric counterpart will be based on – you guessed it! – e-CMP. It should be pointed out here that the CMP vehicle architechture has initially been developed for hybrid and all-electric class B / C vehicles.
The new Corsa generation is also going to embrace a brand new design philosophy, but we won’t be seeing what that means until 2019.
The entire 2019 Opel Corsa family will come with a variety of gasoline, diesel and electric engines to choose among. The latter will ship with a 50 kWh battery for a driving range of at least 450 milometers (280 miles). All gasoline and diesel engines and their respective transmissions will be manufactured by PSA Group the part of which Opel has been since the spring of 2017. Opel actually plans to switch to PSA drivetrains completely by 2024.
Despite the abovementioned circumstance, Opel engineers won’t have too much free time on their hands. The PSA Group has asked its design center in Rüsselsheim to develop new gasoline engines for all PSA vehicles available across all markets (China, Europe, and the USA). The company plans to build these new engines into hybrid drivetrains that would become available in 2022 or later. Apart from that, the engineers will also R&D hydrogen-powered transports and alternative fuels.
Photo: motor1.com; autocar.co.uk