Please help me out on the relationship between Polestar & Volvo. I thought Polestar was their branding for all EVs. As in they’d carved off a specific Volvo-of-the-future EV brand to hold all their EVs.
Now it smells more like Polestar is, yes, EV, but more than that is sorta like Lexus is to Toyota, an “exclusive” luxo brand at least as much as it is an EV brand.
What’s the SD here?
Buckle your seatbelt.
Volvo acquired Polestar to boost their EV program. That Polestar was an upscale brand was incidental/convenient given that EVs initially were more attractive at the high end of the market than the low.
In 2017, Volvo management split Polestar off as an independent company, though still majority owned by Volvo. In early 2024 Volvo (now with their own line of EVs) announced an accelerated plan to reduce their stake in Polestar to essentially nothing by 2028.
Complicating this is the fact that Geely, the Chinese manufacturer, owns both Volvo and Polestar and is really the architect behind all these moves.
It’s nearly as complicated an arrangement as how (if you squint a certain way) you could say that Porsche owns Volkswagen who then owns Porsche. Corporate structures be weird.
Thank you. Yes, weirder than I had imagined.
I take from this bit
that Polestar was initially a free-standing start-up. I’d say “like Lucid or Fisker” but I now recognize I don’t know their current ownership status nor origin story either. Big biz be complicated.
FYI all - This page seems to be a fairly fresh rundown of everybody large or small who makes EVs now. The base article dates from about 18 months ago, but talks about 2025 model year vehicles. Perhaps it’s being actively updated?
Makes an interesting who’s who of the industry.
Returning to the actual theme of this thread …
That page I cited just above turned me on to this thing. Which, if it comes to fruition in that form, is probably my next car and first EV:
BMW is trailing an electric M8-equivalent for 2026, but at least so far is not talking convertible. Which IMO would be a mistake. No rendering pix that I’ve seen.
I guess it’s good to hear I’m not way to picky about my infotainment systems, though disappointing for the people who have to drive these cars on a regular basis. The screen is really the biggest weak spot in an otherwise nice Volvo EV.
I’m pretty sure it has Android Auto and Apple Carplay. It did seem a bit odd, though. Do I install Waze as an app in the car, or do I run Waze on my phone and display it on the car’s screen? Choices are good, but can also be confusing.
Re: Polestar
For non-car related reasons, I was walking by a Polestar 2 in my work parking lot multiple times yesterday, and it had a little decal on the door that said something like “Polestar 2, 78kWh, 300kW.” It almost looked like some government thing, like those big EV stickers on the bumpers of California cars, but maybe it’s more like outboard motors that have the horsepower numbers on the side? (Didn’t some muscle car put a horsepower sticker on the hood shaker?)
I do think it is an attractive car, and I prefer the look of the Polestar 2 over the XC40/EX40, which is a non-offensive, but boring, SUV/CUV/station wagon shape.
I don’t think that’s quite it. My understanding was that back in the the old days, before EVs, Polestar was Volvo’s branding for the sporty / high performance versions of their cars, similar to BMW’s M cars and Mercedes AMG. For example, the Volvo C60 Polestar was the high performance C60 and sort of a competitor to the BMW M3.
When the company started focusing more on EVs, they spun Polestar off as a standalone brand, to be the sort of sporty, more premium, EV sedan.
That’s part of the Polestar design language. That’s a trendy thing in design from a couple years ago. I have a pair of Nike shoes that have that same sort of engineering-spec, austere typeface callout on the sole and tongue. I forget what they call that affectation.
Yes and no? Polestar was a performance/racing oriented engineering firm that was known for primarily using Volvo cars as their base platform. Volvo initially partnered with them for performance versions of the Volvo line (like AMG used to be a separate Mercedes tuner, or Alpina for BMW) before acquiring them in 2015. It’s fuzzy to me if Polestar was already doing EV work at that point, or if they shifted to that as part of the acquisition.
I cannot think of Volvo performance without thinking that it needs a puffer.
IIRC Paul Newman was putting a V8 in a Volvo, and offered one to David Letterman, who took it. Newman then asked if Letterman “wanted it with a puffer,” and Letterman accepted that, even though he didn’t know what a puffer was, because when Paul Newman asks if you want a puffer, the correct answer is “yes.” Turns out it was a supercharger.
This might be one of the times Letterman tells the story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3kW2Bt46VU
Something, something about performance mods on EVs, to keep it on topic. I can click a button, and spend $2000, to take .5 second off my 0-60 time. That’s an amazingly good deal compared to what an ICE car would need to go through to get that kind of performance boost.
Fair enough. Your earlier post made it sound like Polestar was an existing EV startup before Volvo acquired them, rather than a Volvo tuning company.
Yeah. They were an existing startup, for sure. I’m just not clear when they pivoted to EV engineering. Before or after the acquisition, I dunno.
Setting aside the specific of the Plain Jane style of labeling …
ICE cars of course have had labels with either displacement, HP, or a number meant to evoke those parameters since the 1950s.
It sorta makes sense that as EVs become something bigger and broader than niche Tesla & Prius, the public would begin to learn implicitly about what kW & kWh practically represent just as they now know something about CID, liters, & HP in a car context.
And then it’s just a hop and a skip marketing-wise to begin putting those performative go-fast bragging labels on EVs. “My 300kW can smoke your 250kW” brags are not far in the mainstream public’s future. “78kWh? Why such a tiny battery? Bet it sucks on range!”.
My understanding from the polestar version of AAOS is that there are certain benefits to using the Google Maps built-in navigation. First, it will estimate your battery capacity upon arrival and return trip, but also if you plug a DC fast-charging station into the NAV and have enough remaining capacity (ie you aren’t running below 10% ish) it will pre-condition the battery so it’s at the optimum temperature to receive power as fast as it can. Batteries that are too warm or too cold won’t be able to accept 150amps or more of power, so having this feature can be helpful if you’re road-tripping and worried about time required to stop and charge.
As for the “spend 2k and drop .5 seconds off the 0-60 time” thing, that’s available on the Polestar as well, for ~ $1,200. I’ve opted, for now, not to get it because the car is already silly-quick (4.5 - 4.7 0-60 is plenty) and without the need to downshift, passing becomes another game entirely.
People have posted screenshots of this enhancement getting them sub-4-second 0-60 times, but I don’t think there’s an official test to confirm Polestar’s numbers of 4.1 - 4.3 seconds.
Yes because it is just like a credit car. Like when I had a flat tire, I had it with me when I dropped it off at the tie shop. Plus occasionally the Tesla won’t recognize I have my phone with me.
Picking up the Volvo from the service center I got to see a brand new EX30 in person. Just from the outside; I didn’t sit in it or anything. I like the size. I think similar to a Honda CRV, and definitely smaller than the EX40.
tl;dr:
Jag is buying back 2019 I-paces due to non-remediable battery problems - but how much will you be offered?
seems that Jaguar is in a huge pickle, as they went full EV but learned the hard (and costly) way that its not easy tu build a competent EV
Looked at Tesla3 recently, but range issues, scared me off.
We have family in rural Oklahoma, we visit often. Let’s just say charger are far between,
Just purchased an Accord Hybrid; seems like a stress free choice, for our current needs.
Shit. I was waiting for the “fix.” I have only 35,000 miles on my 2019 iPace. I’d buy a new one if it was free from this problem and they gave me fair value for mine.
If it has the same powertrain as my wife’s hybrid CRV, I predict that you’ll like it.
Signed,
A fellow Sooner.
you prob. have more leverage than the avg. Joe (w/ Jag buying back) … I am sure they rather have a happy new client than somebody who potentially bitches up a storm on social media — even if it costs them a couple of grand extra … i am sure thay have budgeted for some allowances …
the article mentions a msg. board - maybe a smart move to gang up to make sure you come out as best as possible.
I found that the garage had a 3-prong NEMA-10 socket, so I went and got a NEMA-14 and wired it into that spot according to the spec in the owner’s manual. It gives me Level-2 charging at home, which is excellent – this car has a conservative charger, so it averages a little under 20mph, but that is still 4 or 5 times faster than trickle.
The manual says that it wants 240V single phase across the hots, but when I test the outlet, it tells me I have 250V. I tested a regular outlet in the garage and one in the house and they both show 125V. Seems kind of odd that our voltage is on the upper edge of normal, but at 4% high, I guess it is in the margin-of-error.