Pass the smelling salts
It’s not the Vauxhall hybrid’s performance that will induce fainting so much as its high price.
A price heading in the direction of 45 grand was an insurmountable obstacle for Grandland X acceptance. During the conversations I had about the car, I was always on standby with a pillow and some smelling salts for the moment when I mentioned the price; cue fainting. It doesn’t really hold itself like a car of that price, or look like one. That’s the cost – literally – of having big batteries.
Of course, there is a caveat, and it’s a big one. If you are a company car driver, the tax you’ll pay is way below that of a standard petrol or diesel equivalent, so as my wan victim lay recovering I would furnish them with the requisite numbers for higher- and lower-rate taxpayers. They still needed the pillow after that, mind.
In certain circumstances, the Grandland X can be ridiculously cheap to run. There was an extended period where we hardly went anywhere further than about 15 miles away and the cylinders of the petrol engine must have been gummed up with cobwebs. Such a big proportion of those few miles was being done on battery power alone (the battery was recharged before the next journey) that I was getting nearly 300mpg.
If you’re working from home a lot, a PHEV like the Grandland with its solid 30-mile range might just fit your new lifestyle perfectly; my overall 60mpg-plus in recent weeks, using both powertrains, is pretty impressive.
Thanks to that electric motor and a combined 296bhp, it can go off the line like Tom Cruise off a carrier deck in a Tomcat. It’s a lot of power, and it’s delivered quickly.
Problem is, heavy batteries combined with an SUV stance results in the Grandland running out of form and into trouble quicker than Harry Maguire. By the first corner, in fact. The handling is so ponderous that the full 296bhp was deployed less than the Swiss Navy.
There are other plus points, such as being able to to lock it into four-wheel drive. Caught in a biblical downpour on a motorway once, it definitely helped stability.
The cabin proved to be goodquality and hard-wearing and I like the fact that most operations could be conducted by buttons and dials. Some of the switchgear is the size of a Tic Tac, but that’s still far easier than having to point a finger accusingly at a graphic swimming about on a screen.
On the downside, the boot is annoyingly small and replacement tyres cost the earth (£192), as my wife found after falling down a sinkhole the size of Lincolnshire.
So variously the Grandland proved to be big, small, cheap and expensive, as most PHEVs do. It didn’t prove to be a great car either, but rather an adequate one.
The handling is so ponderous that the full 296bhp is deployed less than the Swiss Navy