Vauxhall Astra Electric Sports Tourer review

Pretty nice actually. Not the last word in luxury of course - this is a circa £40k Vauxhall after all - but the top-spec Ultimate car we tried was very nicely appointed. You will marvel at the sheer number of materials that Vauxhall has woven into the doors. We counted at least five…

Sorry, not important. The dashboard is dominated by a wing that mimics the ‘Vizor’ front of the car, housing both the 10-inch instrument display and the 10-inch touchscreen. The graphics are sharp on both, though the driver display is a little short on info. It’s almost like Vauxhall didn’t have enough stuff to put in there.

There’s speed, battery charge, range remaining and, um, not a great deal else. Better than information overload, you could argue. You cue up the trip computer using the buttons on the ends of the stalks.

The key thing here though it’s that it’s all very intuitive, and the touchscreen is angled towards the driver, further helped by having somewhere to rest your hand as you jab away at the icons. Also, full credit to Vauxhall for sticking with physical buttons for the climate and volume controls. A win for common sense.

How roomy is it?

If you’re sat up front then you’ll have no issues with space. If you’re of average height then a good driving position is easy to find; none of the awkwardness that some find in this car’s Peugeot sibling. But then we’d argue that gets the better-looking cabin overall.

In the back it’s a different story. Legroom is merely ample - and helped by the front passenger and driver raising their seats up to make more foot room behind - but far from generous. And there really isn’t much difference on the rear bench compared to the hatch: the wheelbase only grows modestly between the two body styles, and it shows.

Headroom is OK for a six-footer. The seats on the rear bench aren’t terribly supportive, but at least they’re not rock hard. You will get an adult in the middle seat, provided they’re of sound mental resilience and happy to straddle the centre console with their legs.

And the boot?

The boot in the Astra Sports Tourer measures 516 litres, about half as much again as you get in the hatch. Knock the rear seats down and that climbs to 1,553 litres. That’s bigger than you find in an MG5, but smaller than a Peugeot e-308 SW and Volkswagen ID.7 Tourer.

Obviously there’s a penalty for going electric over petrol as the battery cells eat into the space, but you lose less than 100 litres compared to the ICE car. Vauxhall boasts that the EV and PHEV version of the Astra are identical in terms of luggage capacity. Which feels like clutching at straws, rather.