from €56,135 including incentives, €65,200 as tested
high-power battery – 75 kWh, driving a 170kW motor
well up to Volvo’s high standards
Volvo laid claim to the moral high ground among automakers when it proclaimed in May 2017 that “diesel is dead.”
Laying down not only a marker for its own future cleanliness and a challenge to all its car-making counterparts, but the Volvo hierarchy also took a seemingly bold step by pronouncing the passing of oil burners as a source of power for both commercial and everyday forms of transport.
It was all a PR stunt, of course, and gathered the Sino/Swedish outfit rather a lot of column inches across the globe with newspapers in certain countries – mainly the UK – stirring up a frenzy of panic among those still utilizing diesel as a form of propulsion who were convinced, somehow, that their preferred type of engine was suddenly going to be whipped from under the bonnet of their cars by some form of petrol police.
Indeed the UK reaction was something along the lines of when Boris Johnson, then an everyday hack covering European Affairs, manufactured a story about the EU banning ‘bendy' bananas. The scarcely believable tabloid rage about Euro-meddling that ensued was pretty predictable, however.
While the Volvo schtick worked wonders by implanting in people’s minds an image of a clean company concerned about the globe’s future, the announcement from Gothenburg was actually more about the fact it was stopping production of diesel engines in five years’ time.
Funnily enough, five years is now up and, oddly perhaps, that just coincides with Volvo’s first purpose-built electric hitting our shores.
But, just in case there was any cross-fertilization between nasty diesel-producing Volvo and the company’s new clean-as-a-whistle image, the powers that be decided that it needed a new vehicle – if you’ll pardon the pun – to sell its all-singing-all-dancing electric cars. It thus came up with a sub-brand, Polestar.
Polestar is, then, essentially the new clean Volvo and from now on we will be seeing a lot of them. For now, however, we have to make do with the Polestar 2, the first all-electric Volvo and, I have to say it shapes up very well alongside the new chargers in what might be termed the ‘second wave’ of such cars.
The ‘first wave’ was dogged with predictable and obvious flaws – terrible range, long charging times and generally unacceptable (to ICE customers, anyway) driving flaws. The second wave has corrected most of those issues and the Polestar is in the vanguard of these beasts.
We recently got moderately excited about the new BMW i4 and hailed it for being part of this new wave of electrics; well, this Polestar is definitely another contender in the segment and will surely be something of a prelude to greater things, in the same way the BMW will.
Ironically, the Volvo XC40 Recharge is quite closely linked to the Polestar 2 in genetic terms, sharing much of the technology seen in its’ nascent sibling which is also endowed with somewhat chunky looks that could be taken to straight from the Volvo design playbook.
It is described as a fastback but looks bulkier than anything that might have heretofore been categorised as such. It is a five-door hatch, certainly, but such is the bulky, solid look of the Polestar that it exudes an SUV vibe but without actually being of that ilk.
Build quality is hugely impressive and mirrors the solid look of the car. There are neat design touches too, such as the frameless door mirrors, the stubby but delightful gear shifter, while the large panoramic roof (part of the Plus Pack specification package) bathes the cabin with lovely soft light.
Again, here, the devil is in the detail as there is no sunblind, but Polestar says a UV layer removes heat soak and, at night, the firm’s North Star emblem is projected onto the overhead glass. Neat, sexy and ingenious all at once.
The décor will be familiar to any Volvo head and while the initial feeling you get is one of Scandi-cool, the interior is actually a rather sumptuous place, what with its (vegan) ‘Charcoal Weave Tech’ upholstery and the Black Ash (something with connotations for Cork people) wood inserts and the large centre-mounted infotainment screen.
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Sure there are familiar Volvo things such as the steering wheel control switches and the electric window controls, but that’s fine too.
Front seat passengers are very well accommodated, but it is a little tight in the back and, curiously for an electric, there is a transmission tunnel which bisects the rear passenger foot space and effectively makes this a four-seater for adults.
The boot is reasonably spacious and its deep, square shape is practical, as are the 41-litre underfloor compartment in the boot and the 35-litre frunk at the front (for cables and the like). It is very useful in this regard although it might not appear so on first impression.
And, although Polestar are projecting that this car will be a big hit with fleet users, it is also terribly family oriented and will find a lot of applications other than hurtling up and down motorways.
There is a bit of a Tesla thing going on with the twin-screen infotainment/instrumentation layout, but it is not as in-your-face as the Tesla and projects a sophistication that’s lacking in its rival. The one downside here – and especially if you don’t have the panoramic roof – is that things are a little dark and gloomy in the cabin.
From a driving point of view, the rear vision might seem a little constricted, largely due to the large C-pillar and the narrow rear windscreen, but tech like the bird’s-eye-view camera and the excellent rear view mirrors, that does not become an issue when parking or negotiating tight spaces.
The infotainment system is powered by Google Android which offers all sorts of tech, which will delight kids and adults equally.
This is a big step up from Volvo’s existing and already acclaimed system. Polestar has also added a function that allows your phone to become a de facto key fob, which is also neat.
Out on the road, the Polestar is fast, but not outright mental and, curiously, that’s a nice mix. The 7.4 seconds 0-100 km/h time is impressive, but the top speed of 160 km/h not necessarily so. The thing is though, that while this might not be Tesla performance-wise, it has an unusually nice balance of grunt without being a dragster.
The high-power battery – 75 kWh, driving a 170kW motor – is alluded to by the curious sticker on the front doors and the gearbox is a single-speed affair driving the front wheels only.
Some 80% recharging can be achieved in 35 minutes and I generally found the 420 km indicated range to be true to its word.
In some of these things, the car will tell you you’ve got 420 km and after ten minutes on the road, you’re down to 300. This car was generally truthful on the range front and, unless you were driving like Max Verstappen on amphetamines, you got very close to what it was telling you it had in the tank.
Now this Polestar is supposed to have a range in the 550 km ballpark, but it told me it was fully charged at 420 km. But that didn’t matter really because you did actually get very close to the indicated range.
On the road, the car is not as hyper as some and feels very planted, even on Irish roads. Sure you can adjust the setting to whatever preferences you feel like at any given moment, but the default ‘comfort’ setting was pretty close to ideal.
If this is a sign of what’s to come from Polestar, then there sure is a lot to look forward to in the coming years and while there are parts of the Polestar 2 that you could get a little snippy about, there is not really that much to cause upset. This is a fine thing indeed.
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