Vauxhall Grandland Long Term Review

First, let's talk about the range. Vauxhall claim the Grandland will do 318 miles between charges an I'd been bracing myself for something much lower in the real world as previous cars using the same hardware as the Grandland have proved disappointingly inefficient when we've tried them in the past. So I was pleasantly surprised to see the range meter show between 310 and 320 miles. 

Pottering around this proved to be something of a novelty, as I had to plug in at home far less frequently than with the Astra. After owning a NIssan Leaf which needed daily top ups, it seems weird driving a car which can go for two weeks. 

To really put the range to the test, I set off on one of my regular journeys up North to Leeds, which is 174 miles from home. In theory I will need just a little top up on the return to get me home - or a slightly longer plug in at an AC point while I'm parked up. 

On the way up, it all goes to plan and I arrive with the expected 45% charge. So I plugged in for 15 minutes on a rapid charger and got up to 65%, enough for just over 200 miles according to the range meter. But then on the way home it became clear that I was going to be about 20 miles short as I got closer to home. I'm not sure if it's because I was driving faster (there was traffic on the way up) or the range calculation is on the fritz, but it's frustrating.

On the plus side, I avoided the expensive motorway chargers and chose a Tesla Supercharger just off the junction. It zapped at 140kW and cost almost half the amount.