Vauxhall Grandland Electric long-term test

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 12,435 List price £39,995 Best Price £39,995 Price as tested £40,645 Official range 322 miles Test range 265 miles 

3 February 2026 – Help or hindrance?

Let's have a big hooray for cars that just let you get on with the business of driving – one of which is my Vauxhall Grandland Electric. Specifically, I'm talking about its lane-keeping assistance technology.

With many such systems, if you have the temerity to choose your own position in a lane (whether it's a motorway or country road), the car will insist that it knows better, and you'll end up arm-wrestling with it until the system gives up and turns itself off. But that's not the case with the Grandland.

Instead, this gently massages my chosen line, nudging the steering gently to keep my trajectory true, but never grabbing the wheel scarily (and patronisingly). 

As a bonus, it's intelligent enough to realise that you don't need to do much in the way of steering when you're on a long, straight stretch of road, so doesn't shout at me here to "keep both hands on the wheel" like many systems do. That was an annoying trait of the MG HS I ran previously – so much so that deactivating the annoying driver assist systems was part of my pre-flight checklist.

More praise goes to the Grandland's head-up display, which is superb. For starters, it's the proper kind that projects info in such a way as it appears a little way ahead of the car – precisely where you want it when you're focused on the road ahead. Secondly, it serves up decent navigational detail, including where I am in relation to nearby roads. And thirdly, the brightness level is just right, whether I'm using it on a sunny day or on a miserable dark night. 

It's such a shame, then, that one of the Grandland's driver assist features lets the side down: the 'intelligent speed adaption' seems to be as thick as two short planks.

Sometimes it accurately tells me the prevailing speed limit and asks me whether I'd like to set the cruise control to suit. For which, cheers. But it can also dream up speed limits from nowhere; I'm often offered a very illegal 80mph on the M25 (is the car spotting 80km/h stickers on European haulage lorries, perhaps?), and it's warned me about non-existent 20mph limits on the same road. Meanwhile once in a Suffolk village it told me the limit was 38mph.

I don't mind a bit of help sometimes, but it should always be from somebody (or something) that knows what they're talking about.

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