OFFICIAL PICTURES
New-era Astra gets PHEV tech
Mk8 Astra adopts Vauxhall’s new corporate look
The radically restyled and mechanically reinvented eighth-generation Vauxhall Astra has broken cover, with its new-era design underpinned by anew platform and the option of plug-in hybrid power.
The Mk8 Astra is the penultimate model in the Vauxhall line-up to move across to a platform developed by parent company Stellantis. It leaves the Insignia saloon as the sole remaining Vauxhall model to still use General Motors-developed mechanicals. The new Astra’s EMP2 architecture isalso used by a variety of models from Vauxhall’s sibling brands, including the nearmechanically identical thirdgeneration Peugeot 308.
This means the Astra, like the308,isnow available with a choice of two PHEV powertrains alongside a more conventional range of petrol and diesel motors.
Each PHEV option mates a 1.6-litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine, with either 148bhp or 178bhp, to a 109bhp electric motor in the eight-speed automatic gearbox for combined outputs of 178bhp and 222bhp respectively. A 12.4kWh lithium ion battery supplies an EV rangeofaround 31 milesand can be charged in less than two hours courtesy of a 7.4kW on-board charger.