Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer Electric long-term test

The car Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer Electric Ultimate | Run by Claire Evans, consumer editor

Why it's here To see if Vauxhall’s family-sized estate is a good alternative to the similar Peugeot e-308 and German estate rivals. 

Needs to Enable me to rack up the miles in comfort, and be as practical and easy to live with as a petrol alternative

Mileage 10,474 List price £39,820 Target Price £39,820 Price as tested £40,520 Official range 256 miles Test range 184 miles Private price now £20,495 Dealer price now £23,999 Running costs (excl. depreciation) electricity (£658), service (£105)

6 May 2025 – Tradition meets modernity 

Much like my local pub, The Kings Arms, which dates back to 1585, the Vauxhall Astra has a long and rich British heritage. Admittedly, the company is now owned by Dutch conglomerate Stellantis, but the Vauxhall brand is still the oldest surviving British car make, having been formed in 1903. 

And the Astra Estate feels like a piece of ‘olde worlde’ England in many ways. Its estate body style has been a mainstay of the brand’s line-up since it introduced the F-Type Victor estate in 1958. However, the Astra Sports Tourer Electric is an unusual blend of past and future. It’s still a practical estate, but it’s powered by a battery pack and electric motor, offering buyers the latest environmentally friendly, potentially money-saving technology. 

I’ve certainly appreciated the significant economy and tax benefits the electric Astra offers over its internal combustion engined (ICE) counterpart. As long as I use my EV home electricity tariff to charge up at night, it costs me less than £4 to replenish the Astra’s batteries. That takes my monthly spend on fuel down from £200 for a petrol model to just £60. And since I'm running my Astra as a company car, I can add on a saving of nearly £80 because the benefit-in-kind (BIK) tax on a 1.2-litre petrol Astra is £198 a month (at 33% for a 20% taxpayer) and the BIK for my car is just £20 (the 3% rate). 

I also like the fact that the Astra looks reassuringly similar to a petrol model. While I appreciate the benefits of driving an EV, I don’t want a car that looks like a mini spaceship. It even has an attractive, fairly traditional looking grille, instead of the bland grille-less front ends of other EVs, and only the e-Astra badging on the bootlid lets other drivers know it’s not a petrol model.  

There has been plenty to like on the inside, too. The eight-way adjustable driver’s seat has helped me stay comfortable on some long drives, and having two rows of physical switches below the touchscreen means I don’t have to delve into the screen menus to demist the car, or control the temperature and heated seats. The steering wheel buttons for the audio volume are useful, too, but I do have to use the screen to switch radio stations and the voice control system isn’t much use at all because it doesn’t seem to understand any commands I give it. 

The voice control not working was only one example of the infotainment system's failings, unfortunately. The Apple CarPlay integration, for example, works well for most functions, but not with the Google Maps navigation and my iPhone. If I’m using it for directions and approach a roundabout, the touchscreen tells me to go left and the dash display right. After a few unintentional diversions, I’ve learned to ignore the dash display completely. 

I asked the service department at my local Vauxhall dealership to look into this when I took the car in for its first service, but they weren’t able to replicate the problem so it wasn’t fixed. 

Speaking of which, having the Astra serviced at one-year-old felt rather unnecessary because many rival electric cars have two-year service intervals. My chagrin about this was compounded by the fact that the service department wasn’t able to fix the central locking problem the car had just developed. The day before the service, the car had stopped unlocking itself automatically when I walked up to it with the key. Again, I was told that the problem didn’t present itself when the service staff checked the car over. The problem persists, though. Even now, after two stints in a Vauxhall workshop the car stubbornly refuses to unlock itself, and only occasionally locks itself as I walk away. 

However, my biggest issue with the Astra has been its range, with the car consistently using up far more range than expected. Driving my daily 90-mile commute with the car in Eco mode and the aircon off, has always used up around 160 miles or more or range. The car has an overall range of 256 miles, so I didn’t have to charge up to get home from work, but it did mean charging every night, and feeling shortchanged because the car wasn’t getting anywhere near the official range. That range has improved a little in the recent hot weather, but it’s still short of what it should be, or indeed what some electric car rivals can manage.

Overall, the Astra Electric Sports Tourer is a good combination of old and new. Like my local pub, which has just been renovated, it retains many traditional features and mixes these with the latest technology. However, it's a shame that the new tech in the Astra isn't perfect – the poor range and niggling problems that weren't fixed have dented my overall experience of the car.  

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