After a week behind the wheel of the Vauxhall Mokka GSE, I’ve found myself asking a slightly unexpected question: is the hot hatch making a comeback, just in a very different form?
The hot hatch has traditionally been about taking an ordinary family car, adding more power, sharper handling, bigger wheels, sportier seats and just enough attitude to make it exciting. Think of the cars that defined the genre over the years — cars that were practical enough for everyday use but entertaining enough to make the long way home worthwhile.
Having owned a few myself, from Fiat Punto Sportings to SEAT Leon FRs, I know what I’m looking for when I get behind the wheel of something wearing a performance badge.
And the Mokka GSE certainly has many of the right ingredients.
Does it look the part?
Let’s start with the obvious.
The Mokka GSE gets the visual treatment you’d expect from a performance-focused model, with big alloy wheels, sporty detailing and, importantly, proper bucket seats inside.
Then there’s the number that really matters: 280bhp from its electric motor and a 0–62mph time of under six seconds.
That is serious performance for what is, fundamentally, a compact family crossover.
There’s something quite amusing about sitting in a relatively upright Mokka and knowing that it has enough punch to embarrass plenty of older-generation performance cars away from the lights.
But if I have one criticism of the styling, it’s that I think Vauxhall could have gone a little further.
Personally, I’d like to see a much more aggressive rear spoiler. The GSE has the performance credentials, but I’m not convinced the exterior quite shouts about them enough.
Of course, that’s entirely subjective. Some people will appreciate the fact that it doesn’t look like it’s trying too hard.
For me, though, a proper hot hatch should have a little bit of visual drama.
So, how does it drive?
This is where the Mokka GSE really starts to make sense.
Take it onto a good, twisty road and the car feels remarkably composed.
I spent some time driving the Mokka GSE on the twisty roads around Brecon, and that’s where the engineering behind the GSE package really comes into its own.
The combination of the Torsen limited-slip differential and grippy Michelin Pilot Sport tyres gives the car an impressive amount of traction.
You can carry some serious speed into a corner, turn in and feel the car settle rather than constantly fighting for grip.
There’s very little drama.
And that’s perhaps the biggest compliment I can give it.
The Mokka GSE feels planted.
Start pushing harder and it doesn’t suddenly feel like a normal crossover that has simply been given a more powerful motor. There’s a genuine sense that Vauxhall has engineered the chassis to cope with the performance available.
There’s also remarkably little body roll.
That becomes particularly noticeable when you start stringing a series of corners together. The car stays impressively flat, giving you plenty of confidence to keep pushing.
It’s certainly not a lightweight sports car — and it doesn’t pretend to be one — but it does a surprisingly convincing impression of a hot hatch.
But there’s always a compromise…
Of course, you can’t have this level of handling without making some compromises.
The biggest one is the ride.
The suspension is definitely on the firm side.
On a smooth, flowing road, that’s not necessarily a problem. In fact, it contributes to the car’s feeling of control and helps keep those body movements in check.
But take it onto some of our less-than-perfectly maintained city roads and you certainly know about it!
Potholes, ridges and broken surfaces make themselves known inside the cabin.
It’s one of those classic performance-car compromises: you accept a little less comfort in return for better control when you’re driving enthusiastically.
And personally, I think that’s a reasonable trade-off for what the Mokka GSE is trying to achieve.
It does mean, however, that I’m not sure it will appeal to somebody looking for a particularly soft and relaxed family crossover.
What about efficiency?
This was another area where the Mokka GSE surprised me.
The combination of performance, weight and those substantial 20-inch wheels doesn’t immediately suggest efficiency is going to be one of its strengths.
But during mixed driving, I was averaging around 4 miles per kWh.
Based on that figure, the real-world range works out surprisingly close to the car’s 209-mile WLTP figure — around nine miles short, by my reckoning.
For a performance-focused electric car, I think that’s pretty impressive.
More importantly, it demonstrates just how far the Stellantis electric powertrain has moved on.
Think back to some of the group’s original EVs from around five years ago and real-world range could be a very different story. Some of those early cars could struggle to get anywhere near 150 miles in everyday driving.
The progress is significant.
And then there was my regular town-driving Eco loop.
Here, the Mokka GSE managed an impressive 5.5 miles per kWh.
That really caught my attention.
To put that into perspective, it gives the Mokka GSE an efficiency level that comfortably beats what you might expect from a typical 2000s petrol hot hatch.
Of course, the comparison isn’t entirely like-for-like — the technologies and driving characteristics are completely different — but it does highlight just how much has changed.
We’re now talking about a car capable of 280bhp and sub-six-second 0–62mph performance that can also return excellent efficiency when driven gently.
That would have seemed pretty remarkable not so long ago.
Does it feel like a proper hot hatch?
This is probably the most interesting question.
The Mokka GSE isn’t a traditional hot hatch in the classic sense.
It’s taller, heavier and electrically powered. It doesn’t have a rev-happy petrol engine, a manual gearbox or the soundtrack that goes with it.
But perhaps that’s missing the point.
The essence of a hot hatch isn’t necessarily the engine configuration or body shape. It’s the idea of taking something practical and making it genuinely exciting to drive.
And on that basis, the Mokka GSE gets surprisingly close.
It has the performance.
It has the grip.
It has the seats.
It has the chassis.
And, crucially, it has that ability to make you look at a familiar journey and think, I wonder what that road is like?
For me, that’s an important part of the hot-hatch experience.
The verdict
After a week with the Mokka GSE, I came away genuinely impressed.
Vauxhall’s first proper step into this new generation of electric performance cars feels like a convincing one.
It isn’t perfect. I’d still like a slightly more aggressive exterior design, and the firm suspension won’t suit everyone.
But the combination of 280bhp, serious grip, impressive cornering ability and surprisingly good efficiency makes for a very interesting package.
And perhaps that’s the most significant thing about it.
The Mokka GSE proves that electrification doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the fun.
In some respects, it actually opens up new possibilities.
Instant torque, sophisticated traction control, a limited-slip differential and the ability to deliver serious performance without destroying efficiency all combine to create something that would have been difficult to imagine in this form 20 years ago.
So, is the hot hatch making a comeback?
Perhaps.
It just looks a little different this time around.
And if the Corsa GSE can take what Vauxhall has learned from the Mokka and put it into a smaller, lighter package, I’m very interested to see what comes next.
