The Opel Corsa-e Rally, the world's first series-produced pure-electric rally car, has begun a testing programme at the Dudenhofen Test Centre in Germany, with two examples taking to the track for durability runs.

“We have two objectives”, said Opel motorsport director, Jorg Schrott. “Both cars are covering as many miles as possible, in order to gather the maximum amount of data at an early stage. There is no experience of an electric rally car that we could turn to, so initially we had to rely on calculations and simulations.

"These are being gradually replaced with real data. Other focuses are on loads and temperature management of the battery, as well as adapting the software. I am pleased to report that our programme is going smoothly.”