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Opel has confirmed that it's embarking on a big electric vehicle (EV) push in 2019. As the German car maker, now owned by the PSA Group which also owns Peugeot, Citroen, and DS, celebrates its 120th year of car production, its boss - Michael Loscheller - has confirmed that battery power will come to the Opel range next year.
"Opel is going electric!" he said "We made this announcement at the presentation of our PACE! strategic plan and now we are delivering. The new Corsa will make electro-mobility affordable for many customers, it will be a real electric car for the people."
The order books for the new electric Corsa will open up in the summer of next year, with the first deliveries expected to be before the end of the year. It'll sit on a new supermini-sized platform that will be shared with the next-generations of the Peugeot 208 and the Citroen C3, as well as the new DS 3 Crossback. We know that the Crossback will get a 50kWh battery, and a one-charge range of around 300km, but it remains to be seen if the Corsa will carry over that package, or use a down-sized, shorter range version.
The plug-in hybrid Grandland, which will share its mechanical package with plug-in versions of the Peugeot 3008 and Citroen C5 Aircross, and should have a circa-50km battery-only range on a full charge, and a sub-49g/km CO2 emissions figure. Power output will be int he region of 300hp, and there will be an electric four-wheel drive system, which uses an electric motor on the rear axle, instead of a propshaft and transfer box. The Grandland X PHEV will be built in Opel's Eisenach factory in Germany.
As well as those models, Opel will also be making an all-electric version of the next-generation Mokka X corssover, and the Vivaro van, both of which will be making their debuts in 2020. "We are putting maximum effort into the electrification of our portfolio," said Lohscheller.
For its 120th birthday celebrations, Opel is trying to emphasise its German heritage, and will introduce 120 Years special editions of all its model ranges in 2019. It's also going to be highlighting some of its most famous historical models, including the Admiral, Kadett, Rekord, Manta and the GT, as well as some of its ground-breaking technical achievements, including the first mass-production vehicle in Germany with a self-supporting all-steel body (Opel Olympia, 1935); the introduction of the three-way catalytic converter as standard (1989), fitting all passenger cars with full size airbags (1995) or bringing the adaptive IntelliLux LED matrix lights to the compact segment (2015) with the Astra.