tristatez28lt1
Tire Trailblazer
Seems to be a real winner:
The Polestar 1 is a 2-door plug-in hybrid sports car marketed by Polestar, a brand of Volvo Cars. It was the first car produced by the company since becoming an independent car manufacturer in June 2017. Based on Volvo's Concept Coupé from 2013, the Polestar 1 is built on the Volvo Scalable Product Architecture platform and is powered by a hybrid powertrain, using a front-mounted engine and two electric motors at the rear. A limited production run of 1,500 cars took place over three years, from 2019 to 2022. Production took place in Chengdu, China, where the company's first production facility was built.
hoffmeister_fan
Kraftwagen König
THat's how I feel about the entire Volvo line-up. Inside and out, there's a calm confidence in their designs.
beckervdo
Schwarzwald Sprinter
With her carbonfiber chassis can not be a regular production model.
Merc1
Premium
Centurion
Apex Apex Predator
I can only imagine the weight of the car without CF parts. It’s already super heavy at 2,350kg which is just 200kg/400lb shy of a full fat Rolls Royce Phantom which has 200kg/400lb of sound insulation.
tristatez28lt1
Tire Trailblazer
Well a Panamera Turbo S is 150kg heavier than the PS1. Its all about batteries.I can only imagine the weight of the car without CF parts. It’s already super heavy at 2,350kg which is just 200kg/400lb shy of a full fat Rolls Royce Phantom which has 200kg/400lb of sound insulation.
Centurion
Apex Apex Predator
That's hybrids for you. The offer the worst of both worlds.
tristatez28lt1
Tire Trailblazer
What an incredibly positive review. This thing might not only be extremely pretty but also one hell of a car. I think Polestar has a damn winner here.
2020 Polestar 1 First Test: Need for Swede - Motor Trend
2020 Polestar 1 First Test: Need for Swede
Supercharged, turbocharged, electrified, and excellent
Jan 2, 2020
"What is that thing?" It's a question you get used to answering when you spend time with the 2020 Polestar 1. This is a car dripping with presence, stance, and Scandinavian style. It stands out, but it does so in a way that's quietly anonymous. The Polestar badge is unrecognizable to most people, and the moniker appears just twice on the entire car, in small script as part of a decal on each front fender. It's no wonder people ask questions.
So exactly what is it? The short answer is, it's a mega quick, mega powerful plug-in hybrid grand touring car from Polestar, a new technology-focused automaker under the Geely-owned Volvo Car Group. It may also be the best grand tourer to usher in the next decade. As for the long answer? Keep reading.
Power, Speed, And Everything Swede
Let's start with mega quick. Polestar claims a 4.2-second 0-60 run for its flagship coupe, which would be mighty impressive for a 5,155-pound machine, but that's not the number our test team recorded. At the track, the Polestar 1 accelerated to 60 mph in just 3.8 seconds and cleared the quarter mile in 12.0 seconds at 119.1 mph. (Braking is equally impressive; big Akebono stoppers haul the Polestar down from 60 mph in 102 feet.)
That quarter-mile time is more impressive than a BMW M4 GTS, an Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio, and a hallmark grand touring car, the Bentley Continental Supersports. As I said, mega quick. Road test editor Chris Walton achieved that time with home-brewed launch control (brake torquing), after which he said the Polestar leaves hard as its front end gets light and squirms around a bit.
Walton, the man who conducts all of our acceleration testing including that of sub-3- second cars like this year's bonkers McLaren Senna, used an exclamation point to modify the word fast in his notes about the Polestar. That's how you know.
Power is delivered from a number of sources: three electric motors and one gas-powered engine. The gas engine is up front. It's the twin-charged (turbocharged and supercharged, like a Lancia Delta S4 rally car) 2.0-liter four-cylinder that's available in T6, T8, and Polestar Engineered versions of most of the cars in Volvo's current lineup.
Unfortunately, even with its fancy carbon-fiber airbox, this powerplant doesn't sound like much more than a forced induction food processor. Here, it develops 326 hp and 384 lb-ft of torque transmitted through the front wheels with an eight-speed automatic.
But 326 hp won't launch a two-and-a-half-ton coupe to 60 mph in 3.8 seconds. The rest of the power comes from those three battery-powered motors—two on the rear axle for instant torque vectoring and an integrated starter generator up front. Total system output sums to 619 hp and 738 lb-ft.
The complex drivetrain translates to a car that can feel alarmingly quick on the road. It can take a moment for the car's electrical brain to process that its gas pedal—er, go pedal?—is pushed to the floor, but past that moment, the Polestar 1 is an eye-widening, chest-compressing super coupe. Driving in Power mode keeps the engine running at all times and holds a lower gear to cut down on lag, but there's still some hesitation.
Driven on its limit, the Polestar flagship reveals other flaws. The car's colossal curb weight was impossible to ignore around our figure-eight course, and that moment of slack in the drivetrain makes it difficult to adjust midcorner. My ride-along lap with testing director and figure-eight guru Kim Reynolds saw him frequently and frustratingly toggling the traction control system, which kept turning itself back on at the slightest degree of slip angle.
Road Mode
Where the Polestar 1 makes the best case for itself is not on our figure-eight course and not on a racetrack. It's as a daily driver. Everything about living with the Polestar 1 and driving it on the road feels premium, proper, and fitting of a modern six-figure grand tourer.
Looks are, of course, subjective, but I'm of the opinion that this is the best-looking car to grace our garage in 2019. The design is largely unchanged from that of Volvo's 2013 Concept Coupe, itself an homage to the gorgeous Volvo P1800, and the Polestar is all the better for it. Its wide grille, Thor's Hammer headlights, and especially the wide haunches that frame the rear end stirred excitement in me every time I'd approach it with the keys.
Most of the interior bits are cribbed from Volvo's S90, but that car's interior feels at least one step above its paygrade, so it's convincingly luxurious in the Polestar. Little things, like the weighting of the metal knobs that open and close the air vents, are just right. The Bowers & Wilkins audio system is among the best I've heard. Bespoke details—intricate broguing on the front and rear seats, a small Polestar logo subtly projected onto the full glass roof, the way the hood panel meets the wheel arches and artfully overlaps with the A-pillar—elevate the Polestar to design greatness.
The Polestar also benefits from Volvo's Pilot Assist active safety features. Although they're not perfect (like all Level 2 autonomy), the systems are well integrated and as adept at trundling through stop-and-go traffic as they are at lessening fatigue on long highway stints.
Balance between ride and handling is strong. The manually adjustable Öhlins suspension doesn't flatten or erase broken pavement in its default settings, but I was impressed (especially considering the Polestar's 21-inch wheels) with the way it took sharp impacts and rounded off the corners, like a woodworker smoothing edges with fine-grit sandpaper.
Manual adjustability adds a definitive racing-tech cool factor, but we don't foresee any owners popping the hood or jacking up the rear end to fiddle around with these dampers. I know it's a classic Polestar move, but I'd call for in-car suspension adjustment on its next six-figure project.
Right For Right Now
The defining characteristic of the Polestar's everyday driving experience, though, is its electric power. If the battery has plenty of charge, the gas engine sits dormant until your right foot explores the final inch or two of throttle travel. The hint of lag that's present when you're demanding the powertrain's full potential is nowhere to be found in most street driving scenarios. It just accumulates speed the way a car in this segment should.
Few Polestar 1 owners would ever need to put gas in this car. With a full battery, it can run in all-electric rear-drive Pure mode for up to 65 miles—the longest range of any plug-in hybrid. Another six-figure plug-in, the BMW i8, can travel just 18 miles on pure electricity. What's more, if you're more averse to charging stations than gas stations, an hour-long heavily trafficked trek into downtown Los Angeles in battery charge mode restored a third of the Polestar's battery. This is a grand touring car that excels in a world whose electric vehicle infrastructure is still in progress.
Yes, the back seats will only fit the most compact of passengers, and sure, there's more trunk space in a BMW Z4 (you can thank the electrical hardware for that), but the Polestar 1 offers a different kind of practicality. It's a stunning electric coupe with zero range anxiety. It's a smart, comfortable, 600-hp audiophile's delight that eases my environmental guilt and can be driven without a drop of gasoline.
It may or may not be as timeless as the P1800, but the Polestar 1 has its own distinct personality that captures this moment in our automotive history better than anything else right now. I can't think of another car I'd rather take with me into the next decade.
2020 Polestar 1 First Test: Need for Swede - Motor Trend
2020 Polestar 1 First Test: Need for Swede
Supercharged, turbocharged, electrified, and excellent
Jan 2, 2020
"What is that thing?" It's a question you get used to answering when you spend time with the 2020 Polestar 1. This is a car dripping with presence, stance, and Scandinavian style. It stands out, but it does so in a way that's quietly anonymous. The Polestar badge is unrecognizable to most people, and the moniker appears just twice on the entire car, in small script as part of a decal on each front fender. It's no wonder people ask questions.
So exactly what is it? The short answer is, it's a mega quick, mega powerful plug-in hybrid grand touring car from Polestar, a new technology-focused automaker under the Geely-owned Volvo Car Group. It may also be the best grand tourer to usher in the next decade. As for the long answer? Keep reading.
Power, Speed, And Everything Swede
Let's start with mega quick. Polestar claims a 4.2-second 0-60 run for its flagship coupe, which would be mighty impressive for a 5,155-pound machine, but that's not the number our test team recorded. At the track, the Polestar 1 accelerated to 60 mph in just 3.8 seconds and cleared the quarter mile in 12.0 seconds at 119.1 mph. (Braking is equally impressive; big Akebono stoppers haul the Polestar down from 60 mph in 102 feet.)
That quarter-mile time is more impressive than a BMW M4 GTS, an Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio, and a hallmark grand touring car, the Bentley Continental Supersports. As I said, mega quick. Road test editor Chris Walton achieved that time with home-brewed launch control (brake torquing), after which he said the Polestar leaves hard as its front end gets light and squirms around a bit.
Walton, the man who conducts all of our acceleration testing including that of sub-3- second cars like this year's bonkers McLaren Senna, used an exclamation point to modify the word fast in his notes about the Polestar. That's how you know.
Power is delivered from a number of sources: three electric motors and one gas-powered engine. The gas engine is up front. It's the twin-charged (turbocharged and supercharged, like a Lancia Delta S4 rally car) 2.0-liter four-cylinder that's available in T6, T8, and Polestar Engineered versions of most of the cars in Volvo's current lineup.
Unfortunately, even with its fancy carbon-fiber airbox, this powerplant doesn't sound like much more than a forced induction food processor. Here, it develops 326 hp and 384 lb-ft of torque transmitted through the front wheels with an eight-speed automatic.
But 326 hp won't launch a two-and-a-half-ton coupe to 60 mph in 3.8 seconds. The rest of the power comes from those three battery-powered motors—two on the rear axle for instant torque vectoring and an integrated starter generator up front. Total system output sums to 619 hp and 738 lb-ft.
The complex drivetrain translates to a car that can feel alarmingly quick on the road. It can take a moment for the car's electrical brain to process that its gas pedal—er, go pedal?—is pushed to the floor, but past that moment, the Polestar 1 is an eye-widening, chest-compressing super coupe. Driving in Power mode keeps the engine running at all times and holds a lower gear to cut down on lag, but there's still some hesitation.
Driven on its limit, the Polestar flagship reveals other flaws. The car's colossal curb weight was impossible to ignore around our figure-eight course, and that moment of slack in the drivetrain makes it difficult to adjust midcorner. My ride-along lap with testing director and figure-eight guru Kim Reynolds saw him frequently and frustratingly toggling the traction control system, which kept turning itself back on at the slightest degree of slip angle.
Road Mode
Where the Polestar 1 makes the best case for itself is not on our figure-eight course and not on a racetrack. It's as a daily driver. Everything about living with the Polestar 1 and driving it on the road feels premium, proper, and fitting of a modern six-figure grand tourer.
Looks are, of course, subjective, but I'm of the opinion that this is the best-looking car to grace our garage in 2019. The design is largely unchanged from that of Volvo's 2013 Concept Coupe, itself an homage to the gorgeous Volvo P1800, and the Polestar is all the better for it. Its wide grille, Thor's Hammer headlights, and especially the wide haunches that frame the rear end stirred excitement in me every time I'd approach it with the keys.
Most of the interior bits are cribbed from Volvo's S90, but that car's interior feels at least one step above its paygrade, so it's convincingly luxurious in the Polestar. Little things, like the weighting of the metal knobs that open and close the air vents, are just right. The Bowers & Wilkins audio system is among the best I've heard. Bespoke details—intricate broguing on the front and rear seats, a small Polestar logo subtly projected onto the full glass roof, the way the hood panel meets the wheel arches and artfully overlaps with the A-pillar—elevate the Polestar to design greatness.
The Polestar also benefits from Volvo's Pilot Assist active safety features. Although they're not perfect (like all Level 2 autonomy), the systems are well integrated and as adept at trundling through stop-and-go traffic as they are at lessening fatigue on long highway stints.
Balance between ride and handling is strong. The manually adjustable Öhlins suspension doesn't flatten or erase broken pavement in its default settings, but I was impressed (especially considering the Polestar's 21-inch wheels) with the way it took sharp impacts and rounded off the corners, like a woodworker smoothing edges with fine-grit sandpaper.
Manual adjustability adds a definitive racing-tech cool factor, but we don't foresee any owners popping the hood or jacking up the rear end to fiddle around with these dampers. I know it's a classic Polestar move, but I'd call for in-car suspension adjustment on its next six-figure project.
Right For Right Now
The defining characteristic of the Polestar's everyday driving experience, though, is its electric power. If the battery has plenty of charge, the gas engine sits dormant until your right foot explores the final inch or two of throttle travel. The hint of lag that's present when you're demanding the powertrain's full potential is nowhere to be found in most street driving scenarios. It just accumulates speed the way a car in this segment should.
Few Polestar 1 owners would ever need to put gas in this car. With a full battery, it can run in all-electric rear-drive Pure mode for up to 65 miles—the longest range of any plug-in hybrid. Another six-figure plug-in, the BMW i8, can travel just 18 miles on pure electricity. What's more, if you're more averse to charging stations than gas stations, an hour-long heavily trafficked trek into downtown Los Angeles in battery charge mode restored a third of the Polestar's battery. This is a grand touring car that excels in a world whose electric vehicle infrastructure is still in progress.
Yes, the back seats will only fit the most compact of passengers, and sure, there's more trunk space in a BMW Z4 (you can thank the electrical hardware for that), but the Polestar 1 offers a different kind of practicality. It's a stunning electric coupe with zero range anxiety. It's a smart, comfortable, 600-hp audiophile's delight that eases my environmental guilt and can be driven without a drop of gasoline.
It may or may not be as timeless as the P1800, but the Polestar 1 has its own distinct personality that captures this moment in our automotive history better than anything else right now. I can't think of another car I'd rather take with me into the next decade.
Centurion
Apex Apex Predator
I would rather have a Tycan, or even better a Model 3 + Cayman GT4.
tristatez28lt1
Tire Trailblazer
Evolution of the GT: Polestar 1 vs AMG GT63 vs Porsche Taycan | Autocar
Evolution of the GT: Polestar 1 vs AMG GT63 vs Porsche Taycan
Is ‘road to zero’ new car legislation about to consign the grand touring car to the history books? After a couple of days in the company of the latest ultra-modern GTs, we think not
7 March 2020
The news out of Whitehall earlier this month seemed very much like the death sentence for the internal combustion engine that so many of us have been dreading, didn’t it? And with it there also came a numbering of days for all sorts of vehicle that it’s hard to imagine being powered in any other way.
Well, maybe not. Things can change, after all, and where government policy is concerned, they usually do. But if prime minister Johnson’s new car electrification plan for 2035, or perhaps 2032, sticks, it’s likely to accelerate a global move towards ever more ambitious sustainability legislation, as the AK47 of public opinion gets aimed ever more squarely at the undeserving temple of the traditional piston-engined automobile.
When the shots are finally heard, we must simply hope that they mark an important beginning as well as an end. If there is to be no place at all for internal combustion in new cars sold just 15 years from now, then at least the certainty of that decree ought to give even greater impetus to the development of electric car technology than it has thus far had. It certainly needs to. From what you might call our 20th century legacy perspective, it’s hard to fathom how the sheer breadth and variety of the car market as it is today might be supported entirely by batteries and electric motors and so few public charging stations. We must have faith that it won’t seem like such a leap in a decade or so.
Tightening our focus in, we must also hope and trust that the classic fast grand touring car will survive the transition. It’s one of the oldest automotive types of them all, and one linked inextricably with our very earliest, most formative and most romantic notions of motoring. The GT has done quite well already to survive more than a century of development, containing within that span a couple of world wars, several oil and economic crises and the rise and rise of budget airlines which, in some countries, sprang up as early as the 1970s.
In spite of all that, with a long way to go and a short time to get there, plenty of us still choose to travel under our own steam, according to our own schedule and route and in our own company – by car. And for those who do, here’s the good news: there is much heart to be found in the very latest ultra-modern fast GT cars, such that the traditions of 600-mile-a-day road trips will continue to be possible, at speed and in style, once we’ve reached the end of this ‘road to zero’ glidepath on which we now seem to be set so firmly. A couple of days like those I’ve just experienced, on the still magnificent and sparsely trafficked Route Napoleon and the surrounding roads of the French Prealps, with a couple of the most wanted, new-age electrified grand tourers for company – and a good combustion-engined fast GT car to provide the necessary context – is all it takes to make you feel significantly better about the future of longdistance motoring.
On our road trip was one of our favourite fast GT cars of the moment: the Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S 4-Door Coupé. A bit of a dinosaur, some might say – and possibly more oil tanker than oil painting, I grant. But as a yardstick of the sheer breadth and varied ability of the modern combustion-engined GT car, to represent everything it can do better, perhaps, than the very height of luxury and elegance it can reach, it takes some beating.
A 630bhp 4.0-litre turbocharged V8 engine mated to an active torque-vectoring four-wheel drive system makes it capable of performance you can call supercar-level without a moment’s pause: 0-62mph in 3.2sec, 196mph flat out. The car feels every bit as quick on the road as those figures would imply, but it knows comfort and dynamic versatility just as well. It has a good-sized cabin with four usable doors and the same number of usable adult-sized seats, plus a boot that will swallow a long weekend’s luggage for as many passengers without the slightest issue.
As we’ve reported many times, this car comes bristling with AMG-typical driver appeal and performance character, ready to handle as well as any bigger sports car but also to reach across long distances in real comfort. And so it is in so many ways the complete any-occasion grand tourer. It comes with a 66-litre petrol tank which, with up to 32mpg possible on a long run, allows you to cover 450 miles between stops – and it can be refilled in less time than it takes your passengers to log into the service station’s free wi-fi and check Whatsapp.
That kind of usable range and recharging capability remains well beyond the all-electric GT for now, but not quite so for the plug-in hybrid. To represent the latter, enter the stunning Polestar 1. Its eye-catching design should achieve one of this debut model’s intended purposes – which is to invite onlookers to wonder what on earth a Polestar is – with impact to spare.
Underneath the square-set, emphatically proportioned CFRP bodywork lies a ‘twincharged’ 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine and a trio of electric motors that can combine to make for as much as 591bhp and 738lb ft while also offering four-wheel drive. There’s enough battery capacity for a real-world 60-70 miles of zero-emissions running, and then a fuel tank with enough for about 250 miles of ‘range-extended’ petrol running on the top. The catch? That such a configuration makes the Polestar the heaviest and slowest car of our trio – although, with 62mph coming up from rest in a whisker over four seconds and a 155mph top speed, it’s still quick enough to cover ground very nicely indeed when the occasion calls for it. This is a driver’s car and no mistake – although it is by no means an ideal one.
Not compared with the remarkable Porsche Taycan Turbo S, whose driving experience we’ll come to in a moment. Porsche’s first electric car was always unlikely to be any half-measure, and yet wrapping your head around this car’s abilities doesn’t immediately get much easier after your first test drive than it is while simply attempting to digest the technical breakdown: up to 751bhp and 774lb ft of torque for full-bore launches, 0-62mph in as little as 2.8sec, more than 160mph in full flight, four usable seats and naff all emissions. Reconcile that lot, and all from the same car, if you possibly can.
The range-topping Taycan Turbo S comes with an official WLTP range of between 241 and 256 miles, depending on specification, and it has rapid-charging capability to take its 93kWh battery from 5% charge to 80%, where there is a rapid charger of sufficient power, in less than 23 minutes. As EV owners will tell you, 350kW public chargers remain pretty rare things at present, but as they proliferate on motorway networks, and just off them, around Europe over the next few years, it should be entirely possible to plan 600-mile days in a Taycan in a not-dissimilar fashion to how you plan them in any other GT car.
The question for touring in electric cars, it seems to me, is whether you’re happy to be bound to a pre-ordained route and schedule, and to have your journey and experience effectively defined by the nearest rapid chargers along it. If, however, you prefer to simply nurture your adventurous spirit and to point the prow of your car in roughly the right direction – to take the road less travelled as and when you fancy, and to worry about how and where you refuel when the need arises – well, perhaps electric long-distance motoring isn’t for you. Perhaps it never will be; time will tell.
Whichever way you prefer to plan your journeys, it will be a while before any electric GT can beat the GT 63 S for ease of use. For straightforward ownership appeal, though, it’s the Polestar that you’d choose out of this trio, I reckon. It’s nowhere near as practical as the Mercedes, with 2+2 seating that would only ever make it a four-seater with younger kids in the second row, and even then over shorter trips only. The layout of the car’s power management electronics also means boot space is limited, and there’s no chance of loading longer items through into the cabin.
Even so, the Polestar’s is a much richer, more pleasant and more luxurious place for two to travel in than is either the AMG’s or the Porsche’s. Where the Taycan’s cabin is bigger on touchscreen technology but is ultimately more restrained and less ornate, and the AMG’s is more spacious and more overtly sporting, the Polestar’s is the bubble of sophisticated luxury that would make touring an easy pleasure. It juggles comfort, visibility, refinement, perceived quality and sense-of-occasion richness the best of the trio – and to drive, it has all the performance and handling appeal you’d expect in a biggish, expensive GT, although it doesn’t reset any preconceptions.
Which is precisely what the Taycan does do, and in all sorts of ways. You wonder, to begin with, how it is that a car that seems reasonably compact on the outside – that seats you so low, that has such a low scuttle and that seems so sporting on the face of things – can possibly weigh 2.3 tonnes. It simply doesn’t look like it does. It really doesn’t drive like it does, either, but that’s the upshot of being seated so low, in among the pouch cells that power the car’s twin electric motors rather than on top of them, I suppose. Not to mention simply the result of what happens when you give designers and engineers from Porsche, rather than from any other car maker, a clean-sheet brief to come up with the very best electric driver’s car imaginable.
It takes something special to comprehensively out-punch a 630bhp AMG on outright performance and handling dynamism, but the Taycan Turbo S manages to do both on the road. Holy moly, this car is quick. When picking up from low speed, it feels even more breathtaking both for response and outright power than you dare expect it might. This is a car whose throttle you squeeze – and you do so carefully at first.
But unlike the other high-end electrically powered offerings that this embryonic market niche has seen hitherto, the Taycan handles every bit as well as it goes – and it stops very well indeed. It steers as well as any Porsche barring perhaps the best GT-department specials. It turns flat, grips hard and contains it body movements tightly, at least until you hit very high speeds. It also manages to deliver the cornering balance and handling poise you would sooner expect from a 1500kg, mid-engined sports car.
So yes, it’s driver’s car, and a sensational one at that when driven really hard. It’s most alike to some next-generation Nissan GT-R than anything else, but with even greater handling poise, tactile feedback and sheer wallop than that would suggest. And that’s why, given the option of all three cars to take for one more tilt down a testing road, it’s the Taycan I’d pick here and now – and probably again and again. Trying to fathom how it does what it does – and exactly how it can make the GT 63 S, which you might imagine ought to handle better because it is, in fact, 250kg lighter, feel like it’s the heavier car – is one of the most superbly bewildering tasks I’ve had in this job.
None of which makes it a grand tourer, of course, which brings us to the summing up of this exercise with no little complexity to negotiate. The Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S 4-Door Coupé, Polestar 1 and Porsche Taycan Turbo S may all occupy similar notional market territory, but they will appeal for very different reasons, to very different people and for quite different intended purposes.
You might imagine that, with the ‘road to zero’ picture looking like it does, I’d recommend that someone with the means to be in this particular market should buy the Mercedes now, while they still can, before the public mood and legislative context turns irrevocably against it; the Polestar in a few years, it being an ideal bridge and introduction to an electrified touring future; and the Taycan in perhaps another few years more, when the world is ready to better support owning and charging it.
That sounds like a very reasonable argument. Trouble is, with the memory of all three cars and an epic couple of days now hardened but still fresh in the mind, the Porsche is all I can think about. How on earth does it perform and handle like that? How have they hidden all that weight so well? Could I possibly find a way to make it fit into my life?
Truly great cars have a habit of leaving you thus bewitched and bewildered, stuck for explanations. And GT or not, we can be sure of this much if nothing else: the Porsche Taycan deserves absolutely no less a billing than that.
Evolution of the GT: Polestar 1 vs AMG GT63 vs Porsche Taycan
Is ‘road to zero’ new car legislation about to consign the grand touring car to the history books? After a couple of days in the company of the latest ultra-modern GTs, we think not
- "The traditions of 600-mile-a-day trips will continue to be possible, at speed and in style"
- "The Polestar 1 is a driver’s car and no mistake, although it is by no means an ideal one"
- Porsche leads the way in this procession of modern-day GTs
- Polestar’s plug-in hybrid powertrain straddles the technological middle ground
- Always charge before you barge
- Polestar trumps both Porsche and Mercedes for luxury
- Polestar 1 touchscreen
- Polestar is a 2+2, and then only for kids
- Polestar's 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine pairs up with three electric motors to make a whopping 591bhp
- he does it best to blend in, but for such a luscious beast disguise is hard
- G GT’s cabin is roomiest but feels the most sportingedes-AMG GT 63 S Coupe touchscreen
- AMG GT 4dr seats four in spacious luxury
- More oil tanker than oil painting? Maybe, but breadth of combustion engine takes some beating
- Porsche Taycan Turbo S touchscreen
- The Taycan’s rear is also accommodating
- Taycan’s charging needs mean long journeys require more planning
- AMG GT 4dr marries supercar pace with comfort and agility
- Polestar is heavy, but it’s far from slow
- Taycan doesn't need a sprawling grille to impress
- AMG's wide grille keeps its engine icy cool
- Polestar also rocks a wide grille
- Taycan Turbo S has an official WLTP range of between 241 and 256 milen's rear end has classic Porsche lines
- "The Taycan delivers the balance and poise you’d expect from a mid-engined sports car"
7 March 2020
The news out of Whitehall earlier this month seemed very much like the death sentence for the internal combustion engine that so many of us have been dreading, didn’t it? And with it there also came a numbering of days for all sorts of vehicle that it’s hard to imagine being powered in any other way.
Well, maybe not. Things can change, after all, and where government policy is concerned, they usually do. But if prime minister Johnson’s new car electrification plan for 2035, or perhaps 2032, sticks, it’s likely to accelerate a global move towards ever more ambitious sustainability legislation, as the AK47 of public opinion gets aimed ever more squarely at the undeserving temple of the traditional piston-engined automobile.
When the shots are finally heard, we must simply hope that they mark an important beginning as well as an end. If there is to be no place at all for internal combustion in new cars sold just 15 years from now, then at least the certainty of that decree ought to give even greater impetus to the development of electric car technology than it has thus far had. It certainly needs to. From what you might call our 20th century legacy perspective, it’s hard to fathom how the sheer breadth and variety of the car market as it is today might be supported entirely by batteries and electric motors and so few public charging stations. We must have faith that it won’t seem like such a leap in a decade or so.
Tightening our focus in, we must also hope and trust that the classic fast grand touring car will survive the transition. It’s one of the oldest automotive types of them all, and one linked inextricably with our very earliest, most formative and most romantic notions of motoring. The GT has done quite well already to survive more than a century of development, containing within that span a couple of world wars, several oil and economic crises and the rise and rise of budget airlines which, in some countries, sprang up as early as the 1970s.
In spite of all that, with a long way to go and a short time to get there, plenty of us still choose to travel under our own steam, according to our own schedule and route and in our own company – by car. And for those who do, here’s the good news: there is much heart to be found in the very latest ultra-modern fast GT cars, such that the traditions of 600-mile-a-day road trips will continue to be possible, at speed and in style, once we’ve reached the end of this ‘road to zero’ glidepath on which we now seem to be set so firmly. A couple of days like those I’ve just experienced, on the still magnificent and sparsely trafficked Route Napoleon and the surrounding roads of the French Prealps, with a couple of the most wanted, new-age electrified grand tourers for company – and a good combustion-engined fast GT car to provide the necessary context – is all it takes to make you feel significantly better about the future of longdistance motoring.
On our road trip was one of our favourite fast GT cars of the moment: the Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S 4-Door Coupé. A bit of a dinosaur, some might say – and possibly more oil tanker than oil painting, I grant. But as a yardstick of the sheer breadth and varied ability of the modern combustion-engined GT car, to represent everything it can do better, perhaps, than the very height of luxury and elegance it can reach, it takes some beating.
A 630bhp 4.0-litre turbocharged V8 engine mated to an active torque-vectoring four-wheel drive system makes it capable of performance you can call supercar-level without a moment’s pause: 0-62mph in 3.2sec, 196mph flat out. The car feels every bit as quick on the road as those figures would imply, but it knows comfort and dynamic versatility just as well. It has a good-sized cabin with four usable doors and the same number of usable adult-sized seats, plus a boot that will swallow a long weekend’s luggage for as many passengers without the slightest issue.
As we’ve reported many times, this car comes bristling with AMG-typical driver appeal and performance character, ready to handle as well as any bigger sports car but also to reach across long distances in real comfort. And so it is in so many ways the complete any-occasion grand tourer. It comes with a 66-litre petrol tank which, with up to 32mpg possible on a long run, allows you to cover 450 miles between stops – and it can be refilled in less time than it takes your passengers to log into the service station’s free wi-fi and check Whatsapp.
That kind of usable range and recharging capability remains well beyond the all-electric GT for now, but not quite so for the plug-in hybrid. To represent the latter, enter the stunning Polestar 1. Its eye-catching design should achieve one of this debut model’s intended purposes – which is to invite onlookers to wonder what on earth a Polestar is – with impact to spare.
Underneath the square-set, emphatically proportioned CFRP bodywork lies a ‘twincharged’ 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine and a trio of electric motors that can combine to make for as much as 591bhp and 738lb ft while also offering four-wheel drive. There’s enough battery capacity for a real-world 60-70 miles of zero-emissions running, and then a fuel tank with enough for about 250 miles of ‘range-extended’ petrol running on the top. The catch? That such a configuration makes the Polestar the heaviest and slowest car of our trio – although, with 62mph coming up from rest in a whisker over four seconds and a 155mph top speed, it’s still quick enough to cover ground very nicely indeed when the occasion calls for it. This is a driver’s car and no mistake – although it is by no means an ideal one.
Not compared with the remarkable Porsche Taycan Turbo S, whose driving experience we’ll come to in a moment. Porsche’s first electric car was always unlikely to be any half-measure, and yet wrapping your head around this car’s abilities doesn’t immediately get much easier after your first test drive than it is while simply attempting to digest the technical breakdown: up to 751bhp and 774lb ft of torque for full-bore launches, 0-62mph in as little as 2.8sec, more than 160mph in full flight, four usable seats and naff all emissions. Reconcile that lot, and all from the same car, if you possibly can.
The range-topping Taycan Turbo S comes with an official WLTP range of between 241 and 256 miles, depending on specification, and it has rapid-charging capability to take its 93kWh battery from 5% charge to 80%, where there is a rapid charger of sufficient power, in less than 23 minutes. As EV owners will tell you, 350kW public chargers remain pretty rare things at present, but as they proliferate on motorway networks, and just off them, around Europe over the next few years, it should be entirely possible to plan 600-mile days in a Taycan in a not-dissimilar fashion to how you plan them in any other GT car.
The question for touring in electric cars, it seems to me, is whether you’re happy to be bound to a pre-ordained route and schedule, and to have your journey and experience effectively defined by the nearest rapid chargers along it. If, however, you prefer to simply nurture your adventurous spirit and to point the prow of your car in roughly the right direction – to take the road less travelled as and when you fancy, and to worry about how and where you refuel when the need arises – well, perhaps electric long-distance motoring isn’t for you. Perhaps it never will be; time will tell.
Whichever way you prefer to plan your journeys, it will be a while before any electric GT can beat the GT 63 S for ease of use. For straightforward ownership appeal, though, it’s the Polestar that you’d choose out of this trio, I reckon. It’s nowhere near as practical as the Mercedes, with 2+2 seating that would only ever make it a four-seater with younger kids in the second row, and even then over shorter trips only. The layout of the car’s power management electronics also means boot space is limited, and there’s no chance of loading longer items through into the cabin.
Even so, the Polestar’s is a much richer, more pleasant and more luxurious place for two to travel in than is either the AMG’s or the Porsche’s. Where the Taycan’s cabin is bigger on touchscreen technology but is ultimately more restrained and less ornate, and the AMG’s is more spacious and more overtly sporting, the Polestar’s is the bubble of sophisticated luxury that would make touring an easy pleasure. It juggles comfort, visibility, refinement, perceived quality and sense-of-occasion richness the best of the trio – and to drive, it has all the performance and handling appeal you’d expect in a biggish, expensive GT, although it doesn’t reset any preconceptions.
Which is precisely what the Taycan does do, and in all sorts of ways. You wonder, to begin with, how it is that a car that seems reasonably compact on the outside – that seats you so low, that has such a low scuttle and that seems so sporting on the face of things – can possibly weigh 2.3 tonnes. It simply doesn’t look like it does. It really doesn’t drive like it does, either, but that’s the upshot of being seated so low, in among the pouch cells that power the car’s twin electric motors rather than on top of them, I suppose. Not to mention simply the result of what happens when you give designers and engineers from Porsche, rather than from any other car maker, a clean-sheet brief to come up with the very best electric driver’s car imaginable.
It takes something special to comprehensively out-punch a 630bhp AMG on outright performance and handling dynamism, but the Taycan Turbo S manages to do both on the road. Holy moly, this car is quick. When picking up from low speed, it feels even more breathtaking both for response and outright power than you dare expect it might. This is a car whose throttle you squeeze – and you do so carefully at first.
But unlike the other high-end electrically powered offerings that this embryonic market niche has seen hitherto, the Taycan handles every bit as well as it goes – and it stops very well indeed. It steers as well as any Porsche barring perhaps the best GT-department specials. It turns flat, grips hard and contains it body movements tightly, at least until you hit very high speeds. It also manages to deliver the cornering balance and handling poise you would sooner expect from a 1500kg, mid-engined sports car.
So yes, it’s driver’s car, and a sensational one at that when driven really hard. It’s most alike to some next-generation Nissan GT-R than anything else, but with even greater handling poise, tactile feedback and sheer wallop than that would suggest. And that’s why, given the option of all three cars to take for one more tilt down a testing road, it’s the Taycan I’d pick here and now – and probably again and again. Trying to fathom how it does what it does – and exactly how it can make the GT 63 S, which you might imagine ought to handle better because it is, in fact, 250kg lighter, feel like it’s the heavier car – is one of the most superbly bewildering tasks I’ve had in this job.
None of which makes it a grand tourer, of course, which brings us to the summing up of this exercise with no little complexity to negotiate. The Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S 4-Door Coupé, Polestar 1 and Porsche Taycan Turbo S may all occupy similar notional market territory, but they will appeal for very different reasons, to very different people and for quite different intended purposes.
You might imagine that, with the ‘road to zero’ picture looking like it does, I’d recommend that someone with the means to be in this particular market should buy the Mercedes now, while they still can, before the public mood and legislative context turns irrevocably against it; the Polestar in a few years, it being an ideal bridge and introduction to an electrified touring future; and the Taycan in perhaps another few years more, when the world is ready to better support owning and charging it.
That sounds like a very reasonable argument. Trouble is, with the memory of all three cars and an epic couple of days now hardened but still fresh in the mind, the Porsche is all I can think about. How on earth does it perform and handle like that? How have they hidden all that weight so well? Could I possibly find a way to make it fit into my life?
Truly great cars have a habit of leaving you thus bewitched and bewildered, stuck for explanations. And GT or not, we can be sure of this much if nothing else: the Porsche Taycan deserves absolutely no less a billing than that.
tristatez28lt1
Tire Trailblazer
Great video!
tristatez28lt1
Tire Trailblazer
This car looks like a real performer ...
tristatez28lt1
Tire Trailblazer
I guess they did a video, too.
D
Deleted member 1071
I went today to Polestar showroom in Stockholm and I saw two Polestar 1. One in the showroom and one parked outside. I have to say it looks fantastic in person.
Simply gorgeous.
TopspeedPT
Track Technician
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Volvo
Volvo Cars is a Swedish multinational manufacturer of luxury vehicles. Founded in 1927, Volvo
is headquartered in Torslanda, Gothenburg, Sweden. The company has been owned by the Chinese
multinational automotive company Geely since 2010. Volvo also produces electric vehicles
under the Polestar brand.
Official websites: Volvo, Polestar
Official websites: Volvo, Polestar
