Vauxhall Frontera Review 2025 | A shockingly priced electric SUV

What is the Vauxhall Frontera?

The Vauxhall Frontera is a compact crossover that shares nothing with its rugged namesake of the 1990s: well, beyond its name, that is. Measuring 4.4 metres in length, it slots into the competitive budget crossover segment as a front-wheel-drive family car, and is offered in fully electric and mild hybrid petrol forms (the latter somewhat misleading badged ‘hybrid’).

Direct competitors include the Fiat Grande Panda, Citroen C3 Aircross, as well as numerous Chinese rivals such as the BYD Atto 2 and MGS 5. It’s a pretty generic kind of car, truth be told, but Vauxhall has at least given the Frontera a unique selling point by making the fully electric version significantly cheaper to buy than the mild hybrid one.

In terms of those powertrains, the hybrid model uses a 1.2-litre three-cylinder turbo petrol engine paired with a 48-volt mild hybrid system, available in 110bhp or 136bhp outputs. Both use a six-speed automatic gearbox.

The electric model offers either a 44kWh battery delivering 186 miles of range, or a 54kWh Extended Range battery providing 253 miles. Both electric variants use the same 113hp motor. Buyers opting for the Frontera Hybrid can choose between having five- or seven seats, whereas the electric model is a five-seater only.

How practical is it?

Boot capacity in the five-seater models stands at 460 litres with the rear seats in place, and the Frontera offers a usefully square loading area. An adjustable height bootfloor comes as standard, giving you the option of stowing extra luggage underneath or lowering it for a larger overall load area. The loading lip itself sits slightly high but shouldn't prove problematic for most users. Overall, the Frontera’s boot space is really quite impressive given the car's relatively compact dimensions.

There’s more than enough room in the rear seats for two adult passengers, with headroom proving particularly generous. Due to the placement of the batteries under the floor of the Frontera Electric, passengers do lose out on a bit of legroom compared with the hybrid version. There’s no centre armrest in either model, and getting three people across the bench could prove a squeeze.

Go for the Frontera hybrid and, for an additional £500 or so, you can specify a third row of seats. That said, the extra rear seats are incredibly cramped, leave no boot space when raised, and rob you of underfloor storage when folded away. Unless you really need them, we’d save some money and stick with the five-seater.

Storage solutions throughout the cabin include a slot for you phone complete with a wireless charger, multiple cupholders, various cubby spaces, and a useful elastic strap around the transmission tunnel that can securely hold phones, wallets, etc in place. Visibility from the driver's seat is good, aided by the elevated crossover seating position.

What's it like to drive?

The Frontera Hybrid offers two power outputs: there’s a 110bhp version that can reach 0-62mph in 11 seconds, or a 136bhp version that manages the same sprint in 9 seconds. Official fuel economy stands at 54mpg for both variants. Impressively, the mild hybrid system can propel the car up to 18mph in electric-only mode, and will do so for a good amount of the time during town driving. The switch between the petrol and electric motors is handled quite smoothly, and overall performance feels brisk enough, but you might find yourself wishing that the automatic gearbox was quicker to respond at times. As it stands, the Frontera’s economy-focused configuration has it changing to the highest possible gear at the earliest possible opportunity, from where it can sometimes feel reluctant to shift down when asked. When the gearbox does finally oblige, you’ll find that the three-cylinder motor sounds reasonably refined.

The Frontera Electric delivers more modest performance, with 0-62mph taking 12.8 seconds for the standard battery or 13 seconds for the Extended Range model. Top speed is limited to 88mph. All adequate enough, but certainly not exciting. The power delivery itself is smooth and linear (as you’d expect from an electric motor), but we do wish the motor itself was a bit quieter. As things stand you hear a noticeable whine at anything above a standstill. The adjustable brake regeneration does, however, work well, if not to the level of offering one-pedal driving.

As you might expect, ride comfort takes priority over sporty handling across both powertrains. The suspension setup absorbs most road imperfections adequately, but it’s the Frontera Hybrid that actually feels slightly more rewarding to drive, likely a result of its lower kerbweight helping to make it feel more agile. What you can’t escape in either model are the high levels of road- and wind noise, which can make the Frontera quite tiring on faster roads such as motorways.

Technology, equipment & infotainment

The Frontera range consists of three trim levels: Design, GS, and Ultimate.

Design (entry-level) includes Intelli-LED headlights, air-conditioning, rear-view camera, rear parking sensors, cruise control, lane-keep assist, wireless phone charging, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and the dual 10-inch screen Pure Panel infotainment setup, one for instruments, one for infotainment (more on that in a moment).

GS adds front parking sensors, climate control, blind-spot monitoring, 17-inch alloy wheels, and a contrasting black roof.

Ultimate (range-topping) throws in heated front seats, heated steering wheel, and heated windscreen.

The standard-fit dual-screen setup provides clear instrumentation and a responsive central touchscreen. The graphics aren’t at the level of Audi or even Kia, but nor are prices. Physical buttons for climate control (or a more basic air conditioning setup on entry level Design trim) remain a welcome touch in an era of touch-sensitive everything.

Build quality reflects the car's budget positioning with hard plastics in places, but nothing that feels flimsy. Overall, it’s about what you’d expect for the price, and you can’t argue with a standard specification that includes those duals screens, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and even a wireless phone charger.

Standard safety features include lane-keep assist and cruise control across the range, with blind-spot monitoring added from GS trim.

Vauxhall Frontera running costs

Official fuel economy for the Frontera Hybrid stands at 54mpg regardless of power output. Expect real-world figures in the mid-40s mpg range depending on driving style and journey types.

The Frontera Electric's running costs will depend heavily on charging location, because home charging on overnight tariffs costs significantly less than public rapid charging. The 44kWh battery requires about five hours for a complete charge on a 7kW home wallbox. Rapid charging at 100kW takes 26 minutes from 20-80% for the standard battery, or 28 minutes for the Extended Range pack.

The £3,500 premium required to upgrade from 44kWh to 54kWh adds 67 miles of range (186 to 253 miles), and so might make sense for high-mileage drivers or those without convenient charging access, but for everybody else we’d advise sticking with the smaller battery in order to pocket the savings.

No Frontera exceeds the £40,000 luxury car tax threshold, avoiding five years of steep additional VED charges, which again represents a useful saving compared to some premium-badged electric rivals.

Vauxhall Frontera reliability

The Frontera is too new for specific reliability data to be available. However, Vauxhall ranked mid-table in recent industry reliability surveys, so neither particularly problematic nor exceptionally dependable.

The electric powertrain's simplicity compared to combustion engines could theoretically make it the more reliable choice because it has with fewer moving parts to fail. Again, however, only time will tell on that one.

Vauxhall provides a three-year/60,000-mile warranty across the range, with an eight-year/100,000-mile battery warranty for electric models. This matches industry standards but trails some competitors, notably MG, Hyundai and Kia.

The Fiat Grande Panda and Citroen C3 Aircross (both Stellantis stablemates, and pretty much the same car underneath) offer identical warranty terms.