The Vauxhall Astra Electric is here! And so is the Sports Tourer…

We can’t help but feel the arrival of the new Vauxhall Astra Electric - promised to us last year - would attract a bit more fanfare if it had been the car to launch the latest-gen hatch. But it wasn’t, so it won’t. Never mind.

Still, the arrival of the EV powertrain deserves some kind of reception, not least because it’ll also be fitted to the Astra Sports Tourer estate. Not many electric estates about, don’t forget.

The details are thus: a 153bhp electric motor produces 199lb ft and is fed by a 54kWh battery for 258 miles of range on a full charge. No 0-62mph figure is given yet, but the top speed’s 105mph. All of which applies for both the hatch and estate.

Meanwhile the Astra’s fitted with an 11kW on-board charger for circa five-hour top-up times on home charging units that’ll deliver such speeds, while rapid DC charging is capped at 100kW. That’s enough for an 80 per cent fill up in about half an hour, reckons Vauxhall.

Available driving modes include Eco (for range emergencies), Normal (for everything else) and Sport (seriously, will you ever actually deploy this?), and as standard you get 18-inch alloys, those 10-inch instrument cluster and infotainment screens, plus a host of Vauxhall’s driver safety aids.

And the firm’s quite proud of the fact that there’s no drop in boot space (at least compared with the PHEV variants) despite accommodating ‘102 battery cells hours in 17 modules’. So that means 352 litres in the hatch and 516 in the Sports Tourer.

“The Astra going electric is a big milestone for both our popular family car as well as for the Vauxhall brand as we move towards our commitment of only offering fully electric cars and vans from 2028,” said Vauxhall MD James Taylor. “Astra Electric and Astra Sports Tourer Electric will offer everyday practicality, comfort and locally emission-free driving pleasure combined with the innovative technology and bold and pure design language that Vauxhall is known for.”

Prices haven’t been announced yet, but order books for the Astra Electric hatch will open early in 2023 ahead of the first customer deliveries in June. Meanwhile the estate will hit the configurator sometime in the summer, with buyers receiving their estates before the end of the year.

Oh, and don’t forget electrified GSe variants are coming, as well as an EV hot hatch...