Battery size: 51kWh
Miles per kWh: 3.94
E-Rating™: B
Max charge rate: 100 kW
Range: 201 miles 
Introduction & model history
Here are the headlines - 280 horsepower. And nought to 60 in less than six seconds. Could it be the car to bring excitement back to the Vauxhall range?
The soothsayers among you won’t be totally surprised by this car. After all, Vauxhall is now part of the huge global behemoth which is Stellantis, and we have seen a couple of other little SUVs which share their general underparts with the Mokka get the fast makeover, so it was inevitable that the beefy motor used in the Abarth 600e and Alfa Junior Veloce would eventually find their way into a Vauxhall.
Rather than use the VXR name, Vauxhall has decided to use the GSE badge – which has previously been seen on a plug-in hybrid Astra. Although this one has a capital E on the badge, to show it's all electric.
In the Mokka the GSE name is a bit more meaningful. In fact, it will be the fastest battery-electric Vauxhall ever – for now at least.
Range, battery and charging
It’s fair to say this isn’t a car you choose for its ability to go long distances. It uses the same 54kWh battery as the rest of the Mokka range, but the extra performance and bigger wheels knock 51 miles off the range, bringing it down to 201. That will only be if you manage to stay away from the Sport mode too much though - we were seeing around 100 miles when having fun on twisty mountain roads.
In a first (as far as we can remember) there is the option to switch the tyres for a bit more efficiency. Swapping the Michelins to Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 3s adds eight miles for total of 209 miles WLTP, but it’ll cost you £100. Someone will need to fire up a spreadsheet to see how long the payback would be. A quick calculation this end says that you would have to drive 142,000 miles to get your money back if you charge overnight on a cheap tariff.
Like the standard Mokka, the GSE has a DC charging speed of 100kW. The AC rate is 11kW, and vehicle-to-load charging is standard - but you’ll need to buy an adaptor.
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Interior, design/styling and technology
The inside harks back to some of the fast Vauxhalls from the 1980s, with grey, black, white and yellow as the predominant colours.
The front special sports seats are covered in Alcantara with integrated headrests, with a white line that extends across the centre and nifty yellow stitching. Then there’s a special steering wheel, which is flattened at the top and bottom, and some aluminium pedals.
The screens are the same as the standard car, except you can pull up a new GSE page which shows performance data, G-force display, acceleration value. All in a nice GSE style. It’s something to show to your mates, but would you ever use it though?
Motors, performance and handling
So it has the looks, does it have the trousers to back it up? It sure does. Like the fastest versions of the Abarth and Alfa, the Mokka has a peak power of 280hp and torque of 345 Nm.
I emphasise the peak there because there are three drive modes, all with different power outputs. In ‘Sport’ it delivers the full beans – which means a 0-62 time of 5.9 seconds, and a top speed of 124mph, with a more direct feel for the throttle and steering
Normal has 228hp and limits the top speed to 112 mph. That’s still plenty. And in ‘Eco’, all settings are trimmed for the greatest possible efficiency. That means you are limited to 188hp and 93mph. That’s still more than 30hp more than the standard Mokka’s maximum.
It’s also a comparatively light weight – the Mokka GSE weighs less than 1.6 tonnes, that’s 200kg below a car like the Volvo EX30, but a lot compared to a petrol car.
But Unlike the Volvo, the Mokka has front-wheel drive, which normally means it’s not as good to drive. To tame all the wheel spin and make the GSE handle the power, it has a Torsen limited-slip differential which stops one wheel spinning more than the other under hard acceleration. With the price of these tyres, that is a thoroughly good thing.
The chassis has been tweaked too. As well as being 10mm lower than a normal Mokka, it has trick dampers and the rear axle is 189 per cent stiffer, dontcha know.
It all works really well too. We never thought it would be possible to have this much fun in a Mokka, but it really does handle. There is still some torque steer when you plant the throttle - something you wouldn’t get in a car like the Cupra Born VZ with its rear wheel drive, or the all-wheel drive Smart #1. But it will be familiar to anyone brought up with hot hatchbacks.
The only other real criticism is the brakes, which switch when in sport mode to have more mechanical connection rather than regen, and it makes the pedal have too much travel - that’s not what you want when you are quickly going from the accelerator to the brake and back again while driving quickly.
Running costs and pricing
The Mokka GSE costs £36,995, but amazingly it’s eligible for the grant, so you can take an extra £1,500 off that. It’s quite a lot of power for the money. Or a lot of money for a Mokka, depending which way you look at it.
Options? Well a body colour roof in lieu of the standard black is available at no extra cost, but a black bonnet is £250 - unless the rest of the car is black too, obvs. Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 3 tyres which add eight miles of range are £100 more.
As with all Vauxhall electric cars, the Mokka GSE gets a package including a £500 credit which can be used towards either an Ohme home wallbox installation, Tesco charging credit or Octopus Electroverse charging credit. There’s also 10,000 miles’ worth of free home charging with the Intelligent Octopus GO home energy tariff.
Insurance is group 32E - not too bad considering the power.
Verdict
We were pleasantly surprised by the Mokka GSE. It’s way more fun than we expected, and decent value too. The looks are a little divisive, as some of the team love its understatedness, while others would want a little more aggressiveness in a car of this type, saying it doesn’t look special enough.
But the big question is who this car should be for. The more mature owner who is attracted to the Mokka won’t want anything this sporty, while younger drivers won’t want a Mokka. Maybe that is what this GSE is trying to change - giving the whole range an image boost. It a plan which deserves to work.
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