Vauxhall Grandland Electric long-term test: report 4

The car Vauxhall Grandland Electric Ultimate  Run by Chris Haining, sub-editor

Why it’s here To find out what Vauxhall's electric family SUV has to offer in what is a highly competitive class  

Needs to be comfy and relaxing on a long motorway commute; economical to run; offer the practicality an action-packed life demands

Mileage 3180 List price £39,995 Best Price £39,995 Price as tested £40,645 Official range 322 miles Test range 272 miles 

11 October 2025 – Smiles for miles

"Stop having fun!". My wife is only half joking when she says that, typically when I'm getting a bit of a clip on when tackling a country road, focusing more on the racing line between apexes than on passenger comfort. She said it fairly recently, when we were in my Vauxhall Grandland Electric. And she was right; I was having fun – albeit by my own very specific definition.

Not long ago, I had the pleasure of a Toyota GR Yaris for a few days, and the precision and immediacy of its steering, the huge traction from its four-wheel drive system and the remarkable thrust of its turbocharged three-cylinder petrol engine gave me such a broad grin that it looked like my head hinged in the middle. It nails the popular definition of what makes a car fun to drive.

Obviously, the GR Yaris is a hot hatch, the Grandland is a family SUV, and it would take a miracle of physics to make the latter behave like the former on a tight country lane. You'll find no miracle here. However, on sweeping West Country roads, I found something very satisfying about how the Grandland flows from one corner to the next.

There are several factors at play here. For one thing, thanks to the torquey pull of its electric motor, regaining pace between corners is positively effortless. On a country road, I'd never be able to keep up with the Grandland Electric in the petrol-engined MG HS I ran previously, even if I put my foot to the floor after every corner (and doing so would make the HS an awful lot noisier than the Grandland).

The Grandland's fairly stiff suspension helps, too, tieing the car's bulky body down to the point that there really isn't much lean when I carry a bit of pace into a bend. And I'd have to be driving far more quickly than would be sensible before grip became a problem; the Grandland has always felt planted and secure when I'm "making good progress."

And then there's the regenerative braking, which recovers otherwise-wasted energy during deceleration and sends it back to the battery. At lower speeds, this isn't quite as well balanced with the regular brakes as, say, the Lexus RZ's system (it's easier to bring that car to a smooth stop).

I love, though, how the second of the Grandland's three regen settings behaves as if I'm driving in third gear; back off the accelerator just before entering a bend and the car swiftly slows to an appropriate cornering speed, and then a gentle touch of the pedal gets it back up to pace on the exit. This, the tidy body control and that electric torque makes it easy to find a very gratifying rhythm between sweepers, as I found in Cornwall and again on Dartmoor.

If I had tried to drive the Grandland quite like I might the GR Yaris, though, my smile would have become a frown. And my wife would have been furious.

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