Zero emissions and great in the city: Opel’s small electric SUV, the Mokka-e, is for Singapore drivers who want Euro-brand electric drive without breaking the bank 

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SINGAPORE
The Opel Mokka-e is (relatively) inexpensive, it’s a great urban runabout, and it doesn’t look like a box on wheels. That alone makes it an EV well worth considering if you want to electrify your daily commute, but it also is the least expensive European EV on the market here, and that’s probably worth something to some of you out there.

But the electric Mokka’s presence also highlights the fact that there really hasn’t been any properly small or mainstream European EV on the market here for some time. BMW of course kicked off the whole passenger EV revolution with its still-cool i3, while Renault’s ill-fated city EV the Zoe never caught traction here.

If you’re yelling that the S$150k pricepoint is not mainstream, well, we’re in an era where a Kia Cerato costs S$130k, so all of a sudden the Mokka-e isn’t that unreasonable in price terms, especially since it has enough caffeine highs to cancel out the lows.

Design and Appearance

With cars like the Adam and Mokka, Opel has been focusing on delivering unique design to help its cars stand out, and it’s largely succeeded here. The Mokka-e is almost identical to the petrol Mokka in design terms, i.e. it’s a funky, small SUV that’s aimed at people who want more visual spark, although the White Banquise paintjob on the test car doesn’t showcase that extroversion in comparison to the Matcha Green option.

The Opel Visor, its ‘one-piece’ headlight and front grille/badge section, the relatively small greenhouse, and darked out pillars and lower half lend an obvious, fashionable coupe-SUV vibe. It’s also worth noting it makes the Mokka appear larger than it is – size-wise, it’s a little larger than a compact SUV like the Kia Sonet, but smaller than a small-class SUV like the Honda HR-V.  

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Interior and Features

The Mokka’s cabin feels more closed in because of its coupe-inflected styling (appropriate), and the fact that it’s not a particularly large or spacious car – the overall dark colours and thick A-pillars contribute to this.

There’s no getting around the fact that there’s a lot of hard plastics in the cabin, but any parents out there might see that as a plus because it looks like it can take abuse. Yet, the presentation doesn’t hide the fact that the Mokka-e has quite a lot of standard features, including advanced ones that you can find on luxury German cars.

It has the now requisite dual-screen interior – 12.0-inches for the driver’s display, and 10-inches for the touchscreen entertainment system. These are lined up in a single curve, which makes for a little drama in an otherwise utilitarian cabin.

There are all the features we expect, from Android Auto/Apple CarPlay, energy monitoring, media streaming, and even on-board navigation (a surprise). It’s not the slickest nor the most eye-catching, but it works, and there are still a refreshing number of buttons to interface safety functions and the climate control too. Under that, is a wireless device charger, and two small cupholders.

Active/passive safety is firmly present, with autonomous emergency braking (Opel calls it Active Safety Brake), lane keeping, blind spot monitoring, driver attention monitoring, and an impressive airbag count for its segment (eight).

Another feature worth mentioning is the MyOpel app, which shows you car info on your phone even if you’re away from the car, including driving data, vehicle location, battery level and more. Kia has a similar feature with its Kia Connect Lite, but in the mainstream, it’s still a rarity.

Page 2: Here’s where the Mokka-e really perks a driver up

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