New Vauxhall Astra driven: £30k hatch is now a true Golf rival

To that end, Vauxhall claims the PHEV is almost as efficient as the hybrid when the battery is flat, doing 52.3mpg – which makes the 56.5mpg hybrid feel a little pointless.

As well as better performance and the economy, the PHEV has more pleasant steering. The hybrid’s helm has little weight and yields minimal feedback. Switch to the PHEV and you immediately notice the extra effort required around the straightahead, plus a hint more texture.

This contributes to an overall sense of solidity that the hybrid lacks. It gave me a confidence in tackling twistier roads that I didn’t feel in other versions – and the Astra is game for pressing on too.

It possesses good body control through tighter bends and, provided you’re not being silly, there’s plenty of grip. The front wheels can scrabble a little if you floor it from a standstill, but this isn’t the kind of car that encourages such behaviour.

Indeed, the Astra isn’t so much fun as it is satisfying to push; it’s a good ‘flow’ car, handling intuitively and fostering a sense of trust when you’re preoccupied by hazard perception on unfamiliar routes.

The pedals – well spaced in the left-hookers we had to test and satisfyingly meaty in feel – help to foster that sense of belief in the car.

The only major trade-offs if you go for the PHEV are a noticeable amount more fidget over brittle road surfaces (although it's still within acceptable levels) and reduced boot space (112 litres down in the hatch, 131 litres down in the estate). 

The Astra’s interior is good too: the digital panels’ graphics are easy to understand, the infotainment software is responsive to inputs and sensibly laid out and you get proper switches for the climate controls.

The steering wheel gets a pair of paddles that allow you to take control of gearchanges. However, the ‘box is overeager to override your inputs and change up earlier than you might like or prevent early downchanges intended to allow engine braking. I was also disappointed that the paddles can’t be used to adjust the strength of the regenerative braking if you put the PHEV into electric-only mode; this feels like an oversight.

Still, for usability, the Astra is ahead of anything from the Volkswagen Group. That makes it all the more a shame that it’s a bit drab to sit in.

What about the EV?

Given its lack of a combustion engine, the EV feels like a completely different car to the two hybrids. It’s powered by a front-mounted 154bhp motor and a 58.3kWh (55.4kWh usable) battery, giving a range of 281 miles in the hatch or 276 miles in the estate. And it can charge at up to 100kW, giving a 20-80% refill time of about half an hour.

You only get the full 154bhp if you stick the Astra Electric in its Sport driving mode, so it feels rather lackadaisical most of the time. Still, it's quick enough to cruise with the flow of traffic – even in Croatia, where the beaming sun seems to have set everyone’s hair on fire. 

The pedals are well judged for making smooth progress at lower speeds and the ability to adjust the strength of the regenerative braking using the wheel’s paddles is welcome. There’s also a ‘B’ mode that cancels out retardation from the motor and allows you to free-wheel on the motorway.

Through bends, your confidence is undermined by the same wooly steering feel as in the hybrid, although it’s significantly better at ploughing over bumps than the PHEV.

Refinement is an improvement on the other variants, too, given there isn't an engine booming away under the bonnet.

If I were to nitpick, there’s a little bit of road noise and, without the engine to muffle it, you notice it echoing around the rear compartment of the estate a bit more. But it’s still more than hushed enough to have a conversation with passengers sitting in the back without having to raise your voices.

You get a bigger boot in an EV in a PHEV, but it’s still not as quite as capacious as that in a hybrid, being rated at 352 litres in the hatch and 516 litres in the estate.

In essence, the Astra Electric is a fine car. It’s good value for money. But if you can stomach paying a little more, there are better alternatives. Although it’s £33,000 and doesn’t offer as much range (270 miles), the entry-level Kia EV3 is nicer to sit in and can charge faster. Target Price data from What Car? suggests that it’s being discounted to around the same money too. 

Vauxhall Astra facelift: verdict