What is it?
Do you
worry that electrification will make all cars the same? Then the Polestar 1 is a reassuring thing: a
600bhp plug-in hybrid with a 2.0-litre supercharged, turbocharged petrol
engine with starter/generator, two other electric motors, a part-steel
part-carbonfibre monocoque, a carbonfibre bonnet the size of a modest mainsail,
and a single transverse rear leaf spring. To top it all, it’s a £139,000 luxury
coupé.
It’s a
coupé so luxurious, in fact, that, um, you have to open the bonnet and delve
behind the rear wheels, having jacked up the car, or perhaps while lying on the
floor, to tweak its 22-stage adjustable Ohlins dampers.
Welcome to
the intensely baffling Polestar 1. There was a time when the BMW i8 was the most interesting car on sale.
Now, it might be this.
How we got
here is an interesting story on its own. Polestar was originally an independent
racer, then tuner, of Volvos. Later bought by Volvo, as is the
way of these things, it became the badge applied to fast Volvo models but has
now become a stand-alone electric performance brand, run half by Volvo and half
by Geely, the Chinese conglomerate that in turn owns
all of Volvo. Bit weird. Apparently, this subtle structural distinction matters
because it means Polestar gets its own R&D spend rather than draining
Volvo’s underlying profit, so it can do things like open a satellite engineering centre in Coventry.
It also
means, perhaps, that its engineers can go to the bosses and present a car as
wacky as the 1 and get the answer: “Heh, sure, go for it.” The 1 began life as
2013’sVolvo Concept Coupé, establishing a new Volvo design
language that the XC90 later used to defibrillate the
range. Volvo never meant to make the Concept Coupé but its designer, Thomas
Ingenlath, is now Polestar’s CEO, so the concept has found its niche as a way
to launch Polestar.
There’ll be
just 1500 1s, all left-hand drive, and sold in only nine countries,
including the UK. They’ll be built in China, and although it’s a plug-in
hybrid, all following Polestars will be
purely battery electric – as well as more widely available and, presumably, cheaper and
less complex.
The 1 is an
extremely complicated car, a vehicle with ravenous performance and luxury, a
car of extravagance but the ability to cover 80 miles on pure-electric power.
It’s a four-wheeled champagne socialist. Beneath the 1 is Volvo’s Scalable
Product Architecture (SPA), the platform that forms the base for Volvo’s 60-series range and above. At only 4.5m long, the 1
is considerably shorter than other SPA cars, hence a chunk has been taken out
of the wheelbase and floor, with some carbonfibre put back in its place.
There is
also structural carbonfibre in the roof and pillars, plus all of the body
panels bar the bumpers, which remain plastic for cheapness of fixing. The
composite is costly and time consuming to use but allows tight radii on those
rather dashing rear wings, reminiscent of the P1800 coupé’s, “but not retro”,
says design director Max Missoni.
More
significant, the composite gives greater structural rigidity and lightness. The
1’s body is 40% stiffer than if the whole caboodle were steel, and it weighs
less. To a point. The twin rear-mounted electric motors, the double-charged and
electrically assisted combustion engine, and 34kWh of batteries located down
the spine of the car and behind the rear seats mean that this 2.07m-wide coupé
with tiny +2 rear seats and not much boot still weighs 2350kg, despite not
being (praise be) a crossover.
Still, the
600bhp and 738lb ft help things move along.
What's it
like?
At this
price and performance, then, the Polestar 1 sits among a vast array of
alternatives: anything from a Mercedes SL to an AMG GT, or from a Bentley Continental GT to a Porsche 911 Turbo.
Curiously,
and often satisfyingly, it’s nothing like any of them. At times it’s more
simple and at times it’s more complicated, at times neither better, nor worse,
just gloriously, wilfully different.
Let’s start
inside. Polestar might be its own thing, but the interior architecture is pure Volvo, and none the worse for it. I’ve often
wondered how far upmarket a Volvo cabin could be pushed and, with carbonfibre
trim inserts and better-trimmed leather than usual, the current answer is
£139,000, no problem.
It’s
necessary to note that what you see here is a validation prototype car, too,
with unfinished tooling and fit. There’s at least one more build phase before
production proper, and yet it’s already better inside than some finished cars
I’ve driven.
The
ambience, then, is a posher version of something familiar. The front seats are
big, the driving position comfortable and the +2 rear seats very small. There’s
a saloon-style boot with some connectors made visible behind a panel, looking a
bit ‘flux capacitor’ (ask your dad) and the rear seats don’t fold. Therefore,
it’s not the most practical of coupés, but such is the will of its personality
that I don’t think that matters much.
You spin
the Volvo start button and the Volvo dials spring to action and you can scroll
through various modes of propulsion, from full EV to four-wheel drive
(everything always on). In zero-tailpipe-emission mode, it’s still brisk enough
to keep pace with motorway traffic. In many-emissions mode, it feels
Continental GT levels of quick.
The ride
and handling give you fewer options. From the factory, those Ohlins dual-flow
valve dampers are set to positions nine (front) and 10 (rear) of 22, and I suspect
that’s where most of them will stay. They give the 1 an acceptably pliant ride,
despite 30-profile, 21in, bespoke Pirelli tyres.
But
moreover, it has a tremendous consistency, with a good ability to smother small
bumps without the ‘sproing’ and echo of air springs, but just as key is a
restrained roll rate, and particularly deft body control for a car of this
weight. It might just be the best EV/PHEV driver’s car to date.
Choosing
those gold Ohlins shocks over adaptive dampers is a little weird, nerdy,
expensive – all Polestar’s words, incidentally. And there is only one steering
setting, moderate of weight and speed, with a nice build-up of torque away from
a very stable centre.
The whole
set-up is very much focused on the way the engineers like it. It’s like a rock
radio station that doesn’t take requests. It’s keyed to the road surface, with
torque vectoring at the rear axle, which puts in effort even during mild
cornering, overdriving the outside rear wheel to increase agility. It’s not so
much that you notice it happening, they say, but you’d definitely notice it if
it didn’t do it. I believe it. Few cars of this mass feel this agile. It’s
decidedly well integrated and curiously rewarding.
Should I
buy one?
Given the 1
is not yet finished, I don’t have to give it a star rating. In a way, it
doesn’t really suit one. This is a car with loads of alternatives but none of
them is a natural rival to a coupe that's slightly bewildering, has a great
sense of fun, and feels like it'll be thoroughly well finished inside.
You might
get the 1. You might not. I must admit I really do.
Polestar
1 specification
Where Gothenburg Price £139000 On
saleNovember Engine 4cyls in line, 1969cc, turbocharged,
supercharged, petrol with integrated starter generator, 2x electric motors at
rear Power 600bhp Torque 738lb ft Gearbox 8-spd
automatic Kerb weight 2350kg Top speed 155mph 0-62mph 4.0sec
(est) Fuel economy tbc CO2 tbc Rivals Bentley Continental GT, BMW i8
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