Vauxhall Grandland Electric review

While the steering is usefully light around town, the rest of the time it's rather lifeless and there's little feedback as to what the wheels are doing, and it seems to turn quickly off-centre in a slightly unprogressive way too.

Still, it accelerates smoothly and calmly, and though it's prone to wheelspin in the wet on occasion, there’s none of that neck-jerking acceleration you sometimes find in other EVs. Zero to 62mph in 9.0 seconds (compared to 10.2s in the mild hybrid) and a vmax of 106mph is, well, pretty slow. But it's not like you're going to be setting any hot laps round Silverstone here.

As ever, you won't appreciate the annoying - but as per EU law, standard - limit warning and lane keep assist systems, which auto activate at the start of every journey. Fortunately there is a shortcut button below the infotainment screen which takes you directly to the driver assist menu where you can turn them off.

Is it comfortable?

Well, it’s by no means bad, but it rides slightly worse than the hybrid on account of the extra 500kg it weighs, topping the scales at over two tonnes. 

Vauxhall has tried to account for the extra weight, with electric variants featuring a multi-link suspension setup at the rear compared to the hybrid’s torsion beam system. Secondly, it gets adaptive damping as standard, which adjusts to the road conditions and driving style. But we found the ride was still fidgety and slightly turbulent.

It's not the only difference between the two: this variant getting bigger disc brakes to help manage the additional weight. But as with the accelerator, the brake pedal was light, lacking in feel and very spongy.

What about efficiency?

Vauxhall claims up to 325 miles of range from the 73kWh battery, but as ever we say reckon on around two thirds of that real world. We averaged just over 3.0 mi/kWh on our first test drive, meaning a return of 220 miles.

There are a few drive modes – Eco, Normal and Sport – which alter things like the steering, braking and pedal response. It defaults to Normal on startup and in all likelihood it’s the mode you’ll stick to, unless you’re really trying to conserve range. Put it in Sport at your peril.

Steering wheel paddles add a further level of involvement, with three levels of regen, the lowest being more suitable for motorway driving, and the highest better for stop-start urban driving. Handy.

Talk charge times to me…

Fast charge capability of up to 160kW means at a rapid charging station (i.e. most motorway services these days), it’ll take under half an hour to charge from 20 to 80 per cent. Twenty-six minutes, to be precise.

It'll be longer at home obviously, but the 11kW onboard charger means a full top-up will be easily achievable overnight using a wallbox unit.