Polestar Design; Innovation; Sustainability

ROADSTER! is invited to experience this thrilling new car brand.

The earth's climate is always evolving, but right now the world is warming up faster than it has done for millions of years.

If unchecked, future generations will be trapped in a world of constant physical destruction, increased human suffering and economic instability. As this issue of ROADSTER! was going to press the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change, was issuing an important new report urging ambitious action. It says taking the right action NOW could result in the transformational change essential for a sustainable world.

Historically, the world’s transport systems have been a significant contributor to the problem - around a quarter of the world’s energy usage and carbon dioxide emissions come from our transport, mainly from burning fossil fuels. But transport is a great enabler, essential for our development, so we need to find sustainable transport solutions that reduce the negative impacts on the environment and don’t rely on the world’s natural resources to power them.

Polestar is a car brand with an exciting vision to improve the society we live in, using design and tech to accelerate the change to sustainable, electric mobility. It is on a mission to make a truly climate-neutral production car by 2030. ROADSTER! was thrilled to be invited to spend the day with Polestar at its new UK head office at Bicester Heritage to find out more!

Our visit began with coffee and (the best) hot chocolate, before we were introduced to Kim and Chloe from Polestar. In the Boardroom, and with plenty of chocolate biscuits, Roadster! was taken through the Polestar concept.

Kim and Chloe explained how Polestar was founded as a separate sister brand to Volvo Cars to enable it to focus on sustainable performance cars. Polestar was launched in 2017 with the Polestar 1 hybrid car. Polestar 2 was launched in 2019 and it started delivering cars in 2020. It has grown quickly, with factories, engineering and safety knowhow shared from Volvo and parent company, Geely.

Polestar has three core values which provide the focus for its cars:

• Design

  Making cars which are simple and easy, are great to look at, are unique and just work.

  
  

• Innovation

  Using technology which is tailored around the car to provide passenger convenience and improve safety, with the latest advances in recyclable build materials, high performance electric motors and batteries

  
  

• Sustainability

  Building climate neutral cars by 2030. Polestar provides customers with a full report on their car’s impact on the planet. It is working with its suppliers to reduce its carbon footprint.

Sam was invited to get hands on with the super rare Polestar 1, the car that launched the Polestar brand - a showcase for Polestar, with features such as a highly advanced power source (two electric motors on each rear wheel, an electric motor for the front wheels and a supercharged petrol engine!) and a carbon fibre reinforced polymer body.

ROADSTER! was then invited to REALLY test a car, and put the Polestar 2, Polestar’s first fully electric, volume production car, to the unique ROADSTER! test… read on!

Pathway Report

Polestar has recently issued the Pathway Report, warning the car industry that it is not doing enough to limit global heating and needs to do more to reduce its global emissions.

It says there needs to be collective action and commitment and it makes three core suggestions to help global car manufacturers:

Speed Up The Switch

Switch from cars that burn fossil fuels to all electric, with a firm stop date for the sale of fossil cars.

Renewable Energy

Charge electric cars with renewable energy.

Decarbonise Supply

Car companies need to place requirements on their parts suppliers to lower their emissions too.

POLESTAR 0

The Polestar O project is all about creating a truly climate-neutral production car by 2030, taking all emissions from the supply chain, the manufacturing processes, the car’s use and its end life.

The project is seeking new ideas from inside and outside of the automotive industry. It wants to rethink and re-invent car manufacturing techniques that have been developed over centuries in order to find fully carbon free solutions.

Polestar believes that people need to come together to focus on the climate challenge, as the solutions will have an impact beyond the car industry.

Polestar 2

The ROADSTER! Road Test (abridged)

Polestar 2 is Polestar's electric performance fastback. Roadster! was lucky enough to get one out onto the road to try it for ourselves!

Of course, eight year old Sam couldn't drive, so the task of driving the car was left to Dad. Sam's jobs were to test the integrated Google assistant, the centre display, the various cabin adjustments, be in charge of navigation and ask lots of questions!

"Ok Sam, do you have your seatbelt on? Are you ready?"

"Yep"

"Right then! Off we go!"

Dad starts to move the car slowly through the Bicester Heritage site towards the gate house

"Oh goodness! We might have a problem here!"

"What Dad? Do you like it?"

"We should take it home to show mum!

“It’s cool!”

“It feels so different to our car and you don’t actually have to use the brake! When you take your foot off the accelerator pedal the car starts to slow down!”

“It's sooo quiet”.

Dad takes the car turns out onto the open road and around the roundabout

“Now Sam, you are my right hand”.

“I’m on your left Dad!”

“No silly! I mean you do all the testing of cabin things while I focus on the driving!”

“Dad! I can feel my seat warming up!”

“Our car doesn't do that, what do you think to it?”

“I like how it feels. It's really nice!”

"I like this map in front of me"

Dad points to driver display behind the steering wheel

"You use Google to program it. Hey Google… it's not working"

“Perhaps it doesn't recognise your voice? At least it doesn’t need Google to access the driving controls!”

We take the car away from the town and onto national speed limit country roads

“Dad, you can change the steering settings”.

“What options are there?”

“Soft for city driving, Standard for motorways and Firm for twisty roads”.

“Leave it on standard, because we are coming up to the dual carriageway"

The car slows down for the busy A34 roundabout

“Right Sam, as soon as we are safe to pull out we are going to find out exactly what this car can do… Are you ready?"

"Let's go!"

The car quickly pulls away from the junction and swiftly reaches the speed limit of the dual carriageway

"Woah Dad! Epic!"

"This car does 0-60 miles an hour in 6.2 seconds"

"That felt faster than 6 seconds Dad!"

A short while later…

“One thing I’m thinking about on this dual carriageway is long drives, like when we go on holiday to Cornwall. It's about 240 miles to where we normally stay on holiday. Polestar has a "Range Assistant" on it's website which you can adjust. If we drove at 70 mph on the motorway for most of the way, then the entry level Polestar 2 would cover about 220 miles on a hot summer’s day."

"240 take away 220. That's 20. So we would run out of charge before we got there?"

"That's right. This car has a few tricks to help get more miles, like a heat pump to save energy and regenerative braking which generates charge as you brake, but we'd still run out before we got there”

“So we'd have to plug it in at a motorway services?"

"That's right, but it's not like filling up with petrol. It would take a bit longer.

"It would be boring waiting"

"Well I suppose we could look around the services."

"McDonalds!"

“Ha Ha! I’m afraid not! Polestar say it is better to only charge to 80%, so no time for McDonalds."

"But we’d run out more quickly if it’s not full?"

“That's right. We might have to charge up twice, but Polestar say that on a long trip it’s faster to stop twice and top up to 80% due to the way the batteries work”.

“You should take breaks when driving for long trips anyway Dad, remember what they said at Iveco? What would we do if there wasn't a charger? Do you remember when we were driving before and we saw a queue of electric cars blocking the car park?

"I remember that. We'd have to plan very carefully, and there would need to be lots of fast and reliable chargers available”.

"And in Cornwall too Dad. When we are at home we'd plug it in to the house. What would do on a campsite?

“Oh yeah, I hadn't really thought about that Sam. There needs to be something. And if lots of people are on holiday at the same time then there will need to be lots of chargers to serve everyone going home”.

We turn around at a roundabout and begin our return journey back to Bicester Heritage.

“Let's think about some of the car's safety features. Polestar 2 benefits from many years of safety research at Volvo. It has a 5-star Euro NCAP safety rating. Our car only has 3-stars”

“I had a look on the website Dad. It's got lots”

“It’s made from strong steel and it’s got front and side airbags. And it’s covered in radar’s, cameras and sensors”

“Phew!”

As we near Bicester Heritage we encounter a queue of traffic at roadworks. We slow to a stop.

“Sam, I saw on the screen something called "creep mode”. Turn it on and we'll see what it does."

Sam presses the button and the car starts to gently roll forward with the queue. Very slowly at around 3 mph.

“Dad! The car’s moving!”

“Oh I like that! I imagine this would transform those annoying summer traffic jams on the M5.. less tiring for my feet!”

“Hey Google... what’s the best way to get through this traffic jam?”

ROADSTER! FINAL THOUGHTS…

Driving Polestar 2 was a lot of fun. Compared to our family car it felt more responsive and agile, almost playful, yet we felt safe and confident. We really liked this car! 5/5!