Production ready at last.
Rory JurneckaWriter
SAN
FRANCISCO, California—Fall is all around us in Northern California, with its changing colors,
hazy sunrise, and crisp morning air. Ensconced behind the wheel of the Polestar 1, a strikingly
sculpted plug-in-hybrid grand touring coupe, we're happy campers. The 1 is charging
effortlessly along Skyline Drive, one of the Golden State's very best driving
roads, that twists and turns through the oaks, redwoods, and maples just south
of San Francisco, en route to the coastal cities of Atascadero and Half Moon
Bay.
It was just
four months ago when Polestar (the one-time racing team turned Volvo
performance branch, turned electric-focused automaker) gave us our first chance to drive of a
prototype version of
its initial offering, the 1. Now, the car is production ready; just 500
per year will be largely hand-built in a dedicated Polestar factory—that's just
over one car per day—at an MSRP of $156,500 each. That's not exactly cheap, but
the car is more or less fully loaded at that price (including an excellent
15-speaker, Bowers & Wilkins audio system), the only option being a $5,000
matte paint finish. Anyway, Polestar says orders are rushing in from well-to-do
male and female buyers who are looking forward to a good-looking, unique hybrid
offering that will have total production capped at just 1,500 for the entire
world.
Make no
mistake, the Polestar 1 is really an introductory halo car for a
forward-looking automaker who's real profits will (hopefully) be made
with the coming fully electric Polestar 2, a Tesla Model 3 alternative, and the Polestar 3, a future
vehicle currently shrouded in secrecy. Now that Tesla has become nearly
mainstream, Polestar hopes that its first offering will whet the appetites of
enthusiasts looking for a more driver-focused hybrid vehicle with the
exclusivity of a more boutique automaker. To that end, Polestar
"spaces" will be constructed where prospective purchasers can test
drive a vehicle and peruse available options, colors, and interior
trims—basically anything but actually buy a car. The actual purchasing process
is all done online. Current plans have 15 of these spaces, each partnered with
an existing nearby Volvo dealership, slotted for the U.S. market, with the
first locations located mainly in the downtown areas of techy, trendy,
charging-station-stocked West Coast locales such as Seattle, Los Angeles, and
San Francisco.
The
Polestar 1 itself is best described as a premium grand touring coupe, and is
based on Volvo's modular SPA platform. Internal-combustion power comes from
Volvo's own turbocharged and supercharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine, which
at 326 horsepower and 321 lb-ft of torque is slightly optimized over the
version found in Volvo's S90 sedan. That engine is paired to a 71-hp
electric starter motor/generator at the crank and an eight-speed Aisin
automatic transmission. At the rear of the car sits a 348-volt, 34-kWh battery
pack that powers one electric motor at each rear wheel, producing a combined
232 horsespower and 354 lb-ft of torque between them both. All told, with both
rear motors and the internal-combustion engine operating in unison, a total of
619 horsepower (down slightly from the prototype's 626 horses) and 738 lb-ft of
torque are available to shuttle this 5,170-pound coupe. That weight comes
despite carbon-fiber bodywork that Polestar says saves some 500 pounds on its
own.
Regulating
all this power are four different driving modes, toggled by a wheel on the
center console that's lifted from Volvo's parts bin. Pure mode is
electric-drive only with a range of about 70 miles; the default Hybrid mode
uses either gas or electric or both, as needed; AWD mode is developed for wet
or icy roads and keeps power flowing to all four wheels; and Power mode
optimizes grunt and the Polestar's torque-vectoring behavior, made particularly
impressive by the separate rear motors. Driven conservatively in Hybrid mode,
Polestar estimates some 540 miles of total range.
It's dubious
that we'll see anything like that the way we're wheeling the Polestar 1 through
the hills above California's iconic Pacific Coast Highway. Windy as this road
is, every time a longer straight appears, its difficult not to flat-foot the
throttle in Power mode to get another dose of silky-smooth torque delivery that
never seems to end. Polestar's stated 4.2-second zero-to-60-mph time seems
entirely accurate, but we're just as impressed with the way the car continues
on, time-warp style, to triple-digit velocities. With the engine working in
conjunction with the electric motors, there's a fairly meaty four-cylinder
growl that sounds mostly like piped in induction noise. It's a more aggressive
noise that we've heard in any Volvo, though it's far from exotic or very
special. (We can't help but pine a little for the rally-esque sounds of Volvo's
old five-cylinder engines.) Because of the torque available, we rarely felt the
need to swap our own cogs with the steering-wheel-mounted paddle shifters, but
when we did response was on the lazier side of adequate.
Lazy isn't
a word we'd use regarding the brakes, trick aluminum monobloc Akebono units
with six-piston calipers up front and four-piston units at the rear. Time and
time again, the steel-rotor brakes hauled our two-and-a-half-ton test car down
from big speeds with nary a grumble and plenty of bite. We also found the
brakes easy to modulate and not grabby around town, as we complained about on
the prototype. Meanwhile, the 22-setting, manually adjustable Öhlins dampers
fitted at all four corners feel near perfect in their default halfway settings
on well-groomed back roads, where the Polestar 1 feels composed with little
body roll. That said, on San Francisco's broken and neglected surface streets,
the ride is firm enough to jolt the coffee right out of our cup's sipping hole
and into our lap. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to try softer settings.
As the road
through the trees narrows into about one and a half lanes and the turns became
almost go-kart-track tight, we really begin to appreciate the Polestar 1's
torque-vectoring ability. Diving into a small-radius hairpin, we can feel the
car shifting power to help rotate the rear end. The Polestar 1 never drives
like a small, lightweight car, but it feels nowhere near its actual heft when
it's being pushed, which helps to inspire confidence despite the momentum and
mass you know you're carrying. Also credit the massive 21-inch Pirelli P Zero
tires, 275-width front and 295 rear, for their role in keeping this super coupe
glued to the road despite the extra road noise their short 30-section sidewalls
bring to the equation. While our prototype drive revealed heavier steering than
we'd like, the production default setting felt about perfect, and offered
plenty more feel than any Volvo we've driven recently. Suffice it to say, the
Polestar 1 felt eager enough that we wish the launch team had scheduled us some
laps at nearby Sonoma Raceway.
The
Polestar 1's cabin is a nice place to be, even if it borrows heavily from
Volvo's production lineup. That chunky dash and extremely comfortable,
Nappa-leather-covered seats will be familiar to anyone who's spent time in a
Volvo, although the bespoke crystal shift lever is an eye-catching diversion.
Fit and finish looks very good with high-quality materials that include
gorgeous satin-finish carbon inserts on the dashboard. Out of the hills and
back on city streets, Pure mode gives good acceleration under electric power
alone and is completely usable for commuter-type driving. Additionally,
Polestar says 80 percent of battery capacity can be charged in just one hour,
making the 1 a viable electric-only day-to-day car that only drinks fuel on
longer (or sportier) weekend drives.
Drawbacks
are few, but true to many vehicles with 2+2 seating, the rear buckets are
really only for small children or, even more so, extra stuff, mainly due to the
sloping rear roofline. While the exposed bright-orange wiring in the trunk
looks cool behind its clear Plexiglas shield, you won't be able to fit much
more than a small, soft duffle or some light shopping in its shallow 4.4 cubic
feet of capacity. That means weekend road trips will necessitate stuffing bags
into the rear seats and with a painfully slow-to-operate electric folding
function, it's an irritating process to gain access. Ironically, engineers
chose manual adjustment for the steering column. Also, while the clear glass
roof is coated with UV shielding, there's no manual shade and we worry that the
car will get awfully warm if it's left outside in Southern California summers,
a key market for the car.
We think
the Polestar 1 sells itself well on its chiseled good looks and
limited-production exclusivity, and that its driving character and quirky
manual-adjust suspension make it a colorful addition to the premium-hybrid
space. If Polestar 1 is in fact a guiding star for the brand's future product,
we see plenty of reason to be optimistic.
Source: Automobilemag.com
Commentaires
Enregistrer un commentaire