Vauxhall Grandland Electric long-term test | Impressive spec

Vauxhall simplified the choice of trim levels available in the Grandland range with its newest model, leaving three options: Design, GS and Ultimate. 

What’s standard is Intelli-LED headlights and taillights, a body coloured rear spoiler – with the EV adding wider front and rear wheel arch cladding and a high gloss finish for the lower body cladding. 

The infotainment is based around a 10-inch touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay (I haven’t been able to make it work without a cable, but have found this with other cars too), and Android Auto. Design also has front and rear parking sensors, dual zone climate control, electric parking brake, power-folding door mirrors with welcome ground lighting.  

Safety measures include adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist and traffic sign recognition. 

Moving up a trim level to GS adds the 3D Vizor integrated front grille, illuminated Griffin badge and headlight combination, 19-inch alloy wheels, gloss black finish on the roof, rear spoiler and front and rear bumpers. 

The touchscreen is six inches bigger, there’s also sat nav, wireless smartphone charging, seven choices of ambient lighting, plus heated front seats and steering wheel. 

Onto Ultimate trim – our test model – with its panoramic glass roof, heated windscreen and hands-free boot (you open it waving your foot under it), driver’s head-up display, a Focal audio system and safety features such as the 360-degree parking camera and semi-automated lane change assist, lane positioning assist, rear cross traffic alert and long range blind spot detection provide a perfect mix of comfort and safety. 

A recent need to make some high mileage trips from my home in Stamford to the likes of Guildford, Chichester and Staffordshire has made me make extensive use of the adaptive cruise control.  

Its primary benefit is to ensure I stay within speed limits and it’s largely reliable and simple to use. But it displayed one quirk on a visit to Nottingham. Driving into a 30mph zone, the head-up display on the windscreen showed the speed limit as 80mph and the car began to ominously speed up... 

The impressive range of the Grandland brings some comfort when wanting to go on far-ranging journeys than would be felt with cars offering less mileage on a full charge.  

But of course, the further you go the more you’re going to have to be sensitive to the chances of getting home without a top-up, bearing in mind the ‘admin’ drives you might need to make – the shorter trips to the supermarket, visiting parents and friends etc. 

And with taking longer journeys I’ve a new respect for McDonalds. I’d avoid it when it comes to sustaining me in its traditional sense, but the fast-food chains’ roll out of 125kW charge points, since 2020, has been golden for range top-ups.  

The InstaVolt unit price/kWh has been 87 pence. For about 47 miles in the most recent instance, charging in Spalding, the cost was £11.15 for 47.48 miles, taking 22 minutes. I could add onto that the cost of a latte for £1.99. One of four stations was out of operation. 

This was a better experience than at a De Vere hotel near Reading, for the May Fleet200 Strategy Network meeting, where none of multiple ChargePoint stations worked.  

Vauxhall Grandland Electric Ultimate joins our fleet

Friends, neighbours, relatives, they’ll all see you coming. And to address the question I’ve been asked the most in the three weeks of driving the Vauxhall Grandland, its distinctive colour is not salmon pink or rose gold, as has been suggested, it’s impact copper. 

The debate has been an unusual icebreaker in introducing Vauxhall’s fully refreshed SUV to all the above people. The Grandland sits above the newly-relaunched Frontera in a car and van range that has an electric choice for every model. 

Now the essentials.  

New Grandland is available in three trim levels, Design, GS and Ultimate. It does away with the GSe variant that topped the range for its predecessor, which I got to drive in 2023. 

The range includes a choice of fully electric or hybrid powertrains. The latter combines a 134PS, 1.2-litre turbo petrol engine with a 28PS electric motor. Vauxhall says it will give you 50mpg. A plug-in hybrid is due to launch later this year.

But our Ultimate spec test model is the former, an all-electric option. It provides a stated range of 325 miles (WLTP) on a full charge and the 0-62mph time is nine seconds.  

Its battery has 73kWh of usable capacity and there’s an 11kW AC charger on board as standard.  

With the capability for 160kW DC rapid charging, the battery can be charged from 20% to 80% in about 26 minutes, Vauxhall says.  

Using a 11kW type 2 public charger, the same charge is achieved in about four hours, 30 minutes; a 7kW wallbox will see the same achieved in six hours, 45 minutes. 

You have the option to switch from immediate to delayed charging, to take advantage of lower electricity tariffs during off-peak hours. 

Despite swings in temperature in April, I’m getting a claimed range capacity of between 321 and 326 miles, achieved I suspect through the standard-fit battery heat pump ironing out the variances typical due to air temperature fluctuations. 

Note, at some point this year Vauxhall says it will introduce a 97kWh battery, offering an impressive range of around 435 miles. 

Since Fleet News first drove the second-generation Grandland in October, Vauxhall has dropped the price of its electric cars range below £40,000 to avoid you being stung by the new ‘expensive car supplement’. 

The Grandland Ultimate’s on-the-road price fell from £40,495 to £39,995 because of Vauxhall’s move earlier this month. 

As an added incentive, the Grandland is available with a ‘Plug & Go’ branded offer that includes £500 towards a Octopus Ohme Pro home wallbox or £500 public charging credit at Tesco stores or through Octopus Electroverse. 

Plug & Go includes a battery warranty for eight years or 100,000 miles and three years of roadside assistance.