TOPSTORY

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Carson sean carson@autovia co uk

BRITAIN’S best-selling supermini, the Vauxhall Corsa, will be updated this year with petrol power retained for the combustion-engined line-up, while the Corsa Electric EV will receive a bigger battery for extra range, and a more powerful motor

Both versions of the car will feature fairly significant styling revisions – previewed by our exclusive images – that bring the Corsa into line with the rest of Vauxhall’s range The most significant design changes will come at the front, where the old car’s more traditional grille will be replaced by Vauxhall’s now trademark Vizor panel

This black section will be discreetly vented to aid cooling in petrol models, while the Corsa Electric will have a blankedoff grille to boost aerodynamic efficiency and improve range The Vizor grille will be flanked by a pair of sharper LED headlights that ape the Corsa’s bigger brother, the Astra family hatchback, featuring a similar running light design Expect changes lower down to fall in line with the Astra, too, including a sportier-looking bumper

Changes at the back will be minimal, with tweaks to the rear bumper and new ‘CORSA’ lettering likely to feature on the boot in a similar fashion to its bigger brother

Vauxhall also could integrate the Astra’s boot-release system, where the badge pivots to gain access to the load bay, which should offer the same 309 litres of space as its predecessor. This is because the updated

Corsa will still be based on parent firm Stellantis’s CMP/e-CMP platform, which also means the compact five-door should retain the outgoing car’s engine line-up, too

This includes a 74bhp naturally aspirated 1 2-litre unit, as well as 99bhp and 128bhp versions of the firm’s three-cylinder turbo petrol engine Performance and efficiency should therefore be quite similar, with the 99bhp model accelerating from 0-60mph in 9 3 seconds and returning up to 57 6mpg

Having revised its naming structure for electric models, the facelifted Corsa Electric is set to receive a similar round of updates to cars such as the new Peugeot e-208 and DS 3 E-Tense, both of which are also based on the e-CMP architecture.

As a result, the battery size will grow from 50kWh to 54kWh, boosting claimed range from an official 222 miles in the current Corsa EV to around 250 miles in the fresh

Testing

Our spy photographers have caught a lightly disguised version of the facelifted Corsa being tested

Corsa Electric. Charging capability of up to 100kW will mean a 10 to 80 per cent top-up should take 30 minutes

The fresh battery will feed a new electric motor that delivers 20bhp more (rated at 154bhp with 260Nm of torque in its sister cars), so given the extra performance on offer, expect the new Corsa Electric’s 0-60mph time to drop by a few tenths, to just under 7 5 seconds

Inside, both ICE and EV models should receive some significant updates to the cabin architecture, with Vauxhall installing its Pure Panel twin-screen infotainment set-up But it’s likely the Corsa will use 10-inch units for both screens compared with the 12-inch displays that now come as standard on the larger Astra model

The trim level choice will fall into line with other models in Vauxhall’s line-up, consisting of a base-spec Design, a sportier