It feels as if the suspension is sprung much more firmly in the hybrid – too firmly. You would expect it to be more softly sprung to deal with that extra weight, but there’s seemingly no need for it to be at the level it is.
This seems to be a recurring theme with Stellantis products: colleagues have reported similar discrepancies between electrified and non-electrified products from other brands in the conglomerate.
My Corsa comparison test revealed something else interesting, too. The nine-mile route I drew up took me from my home in the suburbs right into the congested centre of town, via some short stretches of dual carriageway and a number of faster roads too.
Traffic levels were about the same on each run (there was a one-minute difference in times). The petrol recorded a 42.7mpg average, the hybrid 45.5mpg. An improvement, sure, but is 2.8mpg around town worth spending more than £2000 extra to achieve?
It was a similar story on longer drives: the petrol typically hovered around the 57mpg mark, the hybrid about 3mpg higher. Again, slightly better, but worth the expense..?
Final update
The Corsa name turns 43 years old in 2025, having first graced the mainland European version of the boxy hatch that we Brits are more likely to know as the Nova in 1982.
The first UK Corsa – the round, cuddly hatch that pretty much defines the ‘blobiect’ school of design that became so prevalent throughout the 1990s – hit our potholed roads in 1993 and few other nameplates are now quite so ingrained in our mental image of the British road scene.
That said, in practice most people simply look straight through the Corsa. Much like a first-generation Nissan Qashqai or, perhaps more appropriately, a Ford Fiesta, it’s just… there, simply a part of the traffic jam making your Monday morning worse or occupying the last parking space on your street, worthy of no further thought.