S gear 2
It doesn't give you confidence, and makes it tricky to place the car on the road accurately, a feeling that is exacerbated if you try to drive quickly. The softer sprung Tesla gets a bit jiggled from side to side and doesn’t have such impressive body control, and the American car’s steering is pretty nasty – it has this initial resistance that fades as you turn, which is disconcerting, and seems to operate a heartbeat after your input. Nevertheless, dynamically the 2 is still better than the 3. The end result of all this will see you lying flat on your back on your driveway at home and having another twiddle, while your neighbours make sympathetic faces at the rest of your family. You’ll explain that Polestar sees itself as a performance brand, and again everyone else will look at you like you’re mad because they’re sitting in a square-edged, family-orientated crossover.
#S gear 2 free
Yes, the damping is lovely if you like fast, precise, controlled movements, so feel free to coo about the engineering involved, but everyone else in the car will look at you like you’re mad and wonder why a high-rise car is so firmly sprung around town. But with them, it’s too taut in just about all positions.
Now, I don’t know how the 2 rides as standard. Here, on a mainstream EV, it’s just pointless. There it was quirky – and accessible under the bonnet/back wheel. Answer me this: who the cocking hell thought this was a good idea? It was acceptable on the Polestar 1, because it was a limited edition 600bhp super GT. You can do the same at the back as long as you remove the wheelarch liner first.
#S gear 2 full
If you put the steering on full lock, you can lie on your back under the front wheel, twiddle the knob at the base of the suspension turret and choose whichever of the 20 positions you’d like. As with almost all electric cars the weight is carried low down, and as with almost no electric cars, this Performance Pack wears a set of Ohlins adjustable dampers. The Polestar doesn’t feel heavy on the road. It’s steel with steel panels, too, where the 1,847kg Tesla does at least use some aluminium as well as being designed to be electric from the outset.
This is because it’s based on an existing internal combustion platform – you didn’t expect that did you? – Volvo’s CMA architecture that also underpins the XC40. Two main things at work here of which aerodynamics (a super low drag of 0.23Cd for the Tesla plays a still good 0.28Cd) is the less important. You might be wondering why this is since both are a very similar size. Over the course of 500 miles, the Polestar’s electric consumption was 35.7kw per 100 miles, the Tesla’s 28.4kw/100miles, or expressed more simply: a range of 220 miles in the Polestar, against closer to 270 miles for its rival. Yet the Tesla has easily the longest claimed range: 348 miles plays 292 miles. Chill mode smoothed the throttle nicely and still made the Polestar work hard to keep pace.īetween the axles both sling a plate of lithium-ion batteries – 75kWh of them for the Tesla, 78kWh in the Polestar. Even in reverse, which is a bit disconcerting. Yes, this Tesla is the 450bhp Performance, and it pulled an easy ten lengths on the Polestar off every roundabout or away from each village, but we found ourselves driving it in power-reducing Chill mode most of the time, simply to escape the sudden, neck-straining step-off every time we gently pulled away. Both place a motor on each axle for an all-wheel drive total of 346bhp (Tesla) and 402bhp (Polestar). Take a step down to the 3 Dual Motor Long Range AWD and the plain 2 (other versions will come, and with them bulkier names) and you’re set: £46,990 Tesla plays £47,800 Polestar, with PCP deals available through each firm for under £600 a month. Gold dustcaps, Polestar – exactly how long do you think it’ll be until some oik has those away? And you don’t want or need Polestar’s Performance pack with its big wheels, manually adjustable Ohlins dampers and gold trimmings.
I don’t want to lead your decision making, but you don’t need (or even want – we’ll discuss further on) your Tesla to hit 60mph in 3.2secs – 4.4 is still plenty fast enough. This means they’re both around £55k or about £700 a month on PCP. Similarly the 3 is a Performance version for full-whack-in-the-back go. The 2 you see here is equipped with the £5,000 Performance Pack. Here we go then, Polestar 2 against Tesla 3.