Slide into blissful EV anonymity with the Vauxhall Grandland Electric GS

There’s a quiet design resolution underway at Vauxhall. Since becoming a part of the Stellantis monolith eight years ago, shedding its long, long association with General Motors, the quotidian British brand (and its German sibling Opel) has trucked along without making any massive ripples in terms of design and innovation.

In a sense, it’s always been that way. Consistently near the top of the sales charts here in the UK, Vauxhall’s key models have an aura of the everyday about them, the sliced white bread of the automotive industry. Whilst new ownership hasn’t exactly turbo-charged the business, the current line-up is slowly shedding that ordinary image. Excepting the long-running and best-selling Corsa and Astra models, every other Vauxhall is now some flavour of SUV or MPV: Mokka, Frontera and Grandland, and two electric people carriers, the Combo Life and Vivaro Life.

Electrification has crept in quietly - rather than steam in with a dedicated all-electric model, all models are available as electric or hybrid (and in some cases ICE only). The Grandland shares a platform - and hence its basic proportions, underpinnings and a fair degree of hardware and software - with the Peugeot 5008 (amongst others from the Stellantis stable). Which basically gives you a choice: do you want studied Gallic eccentricity or Anglo-German simplicity?

Spending time with the Vauxhall Grandland Electric GS was not an especially memorable experience. It’s a big car, bluffly handsome in the way it makes no attempt to disguise its bulk. Up front, there’s a body-spanning light bar that’s centred on a backlit Vauxhall Griffing badge. The rear is also low-key, with only an illuminated Vauxhall badge adding a bit of bling.

The overall takeaway is that this isn’t a car aimed at extroverts. Behind the scenes, Vauxhall is readying the re-launch of its ‘GSE’ badge, the slightly tamer performance indicator that once battled with GTIs and Turbos when it adorned tuned versions of cars like the Astra, Monza and Corsa. GSE will be a step on from GSe, or ‘Grand Sport Electric’, which was first reanimated back in 2022.

Will the Grandland join the new GSE club? Perhaps. There was a Grandland GSe back in 2023, but that was a plug-in hybrid. Like every other EV on the market, the Grandland GS shown here doesn’t feel particularly slow thanks to the instant power pick-up, but the actual stats (0-62mph in 9 seconds, top speed of 109 mph) aren’t exactly earth-shattering. The car has a power rating of 213PS – compare this to the 280PS of the upcoming Mokka GSE, the car that’ll be ushering in the new sub-brand.

Even when electrified, does the Grandland simply perpetuate the average, middle of the road image of Vauxhalls past? A little bit. However, that’s no bad thing. As with so many other consumer products, the happy medium is being increasingly ignored in favour of supercar-style performance, bold retro design or over-egged tech or luxury.

The Grandland is and has none of these things and is all the better for it. It’s spacious, quiet, well-equipped, unremarkable and does a better job of being subtly just under the radar than any number of over-designed Chinese brands. It doesn’t need the shouty enhancements of a performance sub-brand or the visionary complexity of cutting edge. It’s a simple car for a complicated time. Sometimes that’s all you really need.

Vauxhall Grandland Electric GS, from £37,605, Vauxhall.co.uk, @Vauxhall