Good editor Carolyn Enting shares why the Opel Mokka-e takes the grind out of her daily commute.
Despite having lived in Auckland for a decade I’m a relative newcomer to the pain of New Zealand’s biggest city’s rush hour commute. Though in recent times, “rush hour” seems to be an all-day thing!
When I first moved to the City of Sails from Wellington, my apartment was in the same street as my office. Later, when I moved out West, I was fortunate to be just a 15-minute drive from Good mag HQ.
A year ago, we moved offices and that 15-minute journey has stretched to 50 minutes on average. Stop, start, stop, start, stop. You need to be alert because a wandering mind can cause momentary distraction and you don’t want to be rear-ending the car in front of you, which is why when I took the new Opel Mokka-e SUV EV for several crawls along the Auckland motorway, my heart sang.
Aside from getting looks from commuters when I passed them – because the Opel Mokka-e is a seriously good-looking car – I revelled in the adaptable cruise control function. This smart function enables you to set the distance between you and the vehicle in front, so that the car will automatically slow down or stop, if that’s what the vehicle you are following does. No need to apply the brake.
It takes a bit of getting used to, to trust the car will do its job, but when you do it’s a little life changing!
The side mirrors’ blind spot function is also superb and alerts you with a flashing red light if it’s unsafe to change lanes.
The Opel Mokka-e is also the lowest emission German brand in New Zealand and adapts to your driving style with sport, eco and normal driving modes. It’s range on eco mode is 363km. If you drive in sport mode, that drops a bit, but is still over 300km.
Another function I absolutely love is its IntelliLux Matrix Headlights. What are those you ask? Well, when driving at night the lights are automatically on high beam, offering maximum visibility, and you don’t have to dip your lights for oncoming traffic because it does it for you by tracing a low beam periphery around oncoming cars.
I’ve decided driving the Mokka-e is also a four-S experience – sexy, stylish, sporty and sustainable. Let’s face it, driving a sporty EV with a lightning bolt emblem is up there when it comes to saving the world hero creds, plus the car’s profile and luscious interior swoon worthy. Black on black with an accent of a red racing stripe over the windows; subtly across the dash; and race car-look seats.
The steering wheel, featuring the basting stitch favoured by luxury European cars, can be heated in winter to warm cold hands. And the seats heat up too on demand.
How does it feel on the road? It handles beautifully, has great pick up for cruising or passing, and being a compact SUV it’s easy to park as well as navigate the narrow streets of Ponsonby. The boot is also spacious with plenty of room for groceries and much more.
Charging the vehicle is super easy, too. Each car comes with a complementary wall charge station to install at home (offer expires end of March 2023), which charges the Mokka-e up to 80 per cent in just 30 minutes!
Of course, there are charge stations all over the city now, including at SCG (proud publisher of Good mag). It’s as simple as just plugging in!
One important safety hot tip is to never use an extension cord when charging – that goes for all EVs – as that can potentially cause a fire because the charge for an EV battery is so high and you don’t want that.
Speaking of batteries, Opel EVs come with an eight-year warranty and five-year bumper to bumper warranty.
What’s also astonishing (to me at least) is that when compared to the current petrol prices and average commute of most Aucklanders, trading up to the Mokka-e makes good financial sense. Priced at $69,990 it qualifies for the clean car rebate of $8,625, which brings it down to $61,365 and can be yours via Opel iOWN finance offering from $209 per week.
Opel is indeed on track to helping Kiwis into an electrified future!
