When are you going fully electric?

jpaul said:
OK yes on the technology side, but the ergonomics seat comfort, cabin space, visibility, rear visibility, are difficult to appraise,
polestar 2 very much a case in point , I forget, its just 5cm taller than an m3, but has the appearance of an suv, so if I thought I'd purchased a saloon and an suv/cross turned up I'd be shocked; manufacturers, their specs, reviews, are not open on these points.
(... without mentioning weight and handling criteria )
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Most reviews mention the ride height (mainly as being a positive) and many reviews also refer to the fact it's built on the same platform as the XC40.

It's clearly higher, but not on the same levels as some SUVs

JGOlFSx.jpg
 
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VincentHanna said:
Most reviews mention the ride height (mainly as being a positive) and many reviews also refer to the fact it's built on the same platform as the XC40.
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Yes I agree ride height on p2 is a positive, and your picture (1000words) explains, for the first time, the contradiction I had (is it an suv) so it's windscreen height is lower, versus an m3, which has a larger rake ... I'm intrigued to compare relative luminosity in cabins now.
 
Both have a glass roof, so I imagine they are both pretty light inside.

I don't doubt the view out of the front of M3 is better though, it can't not be, when the bonnet slopes down like that.

The M3 is a better shape for cutting through the air, probably one reason the range is up to 20% better, but it's not a particularly nice looking vehicle. It's decent enough.
 
jpaul said:
OK yes on the technology side, but the ergonomics seat comfort, cabin space, visibility, rear visibility, are difficult to appraise,
polestar 2 very much a case in point , I forget, its just 5cm taller than an m3, but has the appearance of an suv, so if I thought I'd purchased a saloon and an suv/cross turned up I'd be shocked; manufacturers, their specs, reviews, are not open on these points.
(... without mentioning weight and handling criteria )
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Actually, even the seats are mainly made by a couple of specialist companies (Farecia in Litchfield, Johnson Controls aka Recaro and Lear manufacture almost all of them. Only Toyota actually make their own seats in-house. And there are incredibly tight EN requirements for ergonomics so you discover that a lot of the designs are actually bought in from consultancies. The "manufacturers" actually do an awful lot less of the design process than they would like you to believe. On of the reasons VW has so many issues with their BEVs is they subbed out so much of their development work to manufacturers. When I worked for Degussa in Germany, my office was directly above the Catalytic Converter labs and all the car manufacturers bought their catalysts from Degussa (they literally had a monopoly at that time) so there was a constant stream of mules and prototypes sat outside the office.

Do you really think a Polestar 2 looks like an SUV? I actually think it hides that height really well.

And as for people driving cars 'dynamically' I could count on the fingers of my right fist how many people I know who would try and DRIVE a car on a test drive. Maybe @[TW]Fox?
 
TheOracle said:
Polestar is the much better looking of the two, and almost certainly significantly better built. Tesla probably has the better technology though.
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Of the 1,665,456,434,675,435 hours of Polestar YouTube videos I've watched, your sentence sums it all up perfectly.

I'll let you know in July.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Ps2 looks like an american muscle car to me (the higher bonnet, wider "heavier" stance etc), not at all like an SUV
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yes you are right , it's the unusual proportions which I'd like to see first hand before purchase , those proportions are probably helping the active crash resilience too,
I keep forgetting the extra weight, even lower efficiency, versus an M3 may correspond to that tradeoff.

The use of full glass roofs, how do those actually fare in a Tiger style accident, or that's not part of NCAP (just the moose test)
 
jpaul said:
yes you are right , it's the unusual proportions which I'd like to see first hand before purchase , those proportions are probably helping the active crash resilience too,
I keep forgetting the extra weight, even lower efficiency, versus an M3 may correspond to that tradeoff.

The use of full glass roofs, how do those actually fare in a Tiger style accident, or that's not part of NCAP (just the moose test)
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I parked my M3 Performance upside down in a field having rolled end-over-end twice. The only thing on the car that wasn't damaged was the glass roof.
 
I was enjoying myself! I don't know how well you know rural Lincolnshire but there are some incredible stretches of straight road with right-hand bends at the end and I was near Navenby between Wellingore and Bassingham and I fancied a bit of a 'drive'. I put the speed limiter on at 60mph. Which I thought would protect me a bit. And I was just flat-to-the floor accelerator, flat to the floor brakes, 90-degree bend, flat to the floor accelerator, flat to the floor brakes, 90-degree bend and somehow I forgot the flat to the floor brakes and just went straight on into the field at about 35mph. The nose went into the fairly hard ploughed field, dug in then the car flipped, then flipped again and ended up on it's roof. I had a nasty bruise on my shoulder where the seat-belt belt me in the seat and a small bump on my head when I was cut out of the seat-belt by the fire brigade. They promised they'd catch me! Liars!

The car was a write-off and SWMBO said I had to get something a bit less aggressive, hence the Kona.
 
WJA96 said:
I was enjoying myself! I don't know how well you know rural Lincolnshire but there are some incredible stretches of straight road with right-hand bends at the end and I was near Navenby between Wellingore and Bassingham and I fancied a bit of a 'drive'. I put the speed limiter on at 60mph. Which I thought would protect me a bit. And I was just flat-to-the floor accelerator, flat to the floor brakes, 90-degree bend, flat to the floor accelerator, flat to the floor brakes, 90-degree bend and somehow I forgot the flat to the floor brakes and just went straight on into the field at about 35mph. The nose went into the fairly hard ploughed field, dug in then the car flipped, then flipped again and ended up on it's roof. I had a nasty bruise on my shoulder where the seat-belt belt me in the seat and a small bump on my head when I was cut out of the seat-belt by the fire brigade. They promised they'd catch me! Liars!

The car was a write-off and SWMBO said I had to get something a bit less aggressive, hence the Kona.
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I know exactly where that is.
 
I’d driven that road dozens of times. I was at Porter’s Feedmill and I was on my way back to Salford and I just thought it would be great to use ALL that acceleration but the truth is that I wasn’t quick enough on the brakes. The M3 Performance is stupidly fast. Certainly too fast for me.
 
Jonnycoupe said:
https://www.gridserve.com/2021/03/1...partnership-to-power-up-the-electric-highway/

GRIDSERVE and ECOTRICITY Partnership.

Big news for the UK motorway network, really positive.
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Maybe. Gridserve have one (maybe two now?) functioning site(s) and are building another one/two. Ecotricity have most of the franchise rights for car charging at motorway services. Basically, they got a load of money from the Government to install those chargers then singularly failed to maintain them.

If Gridserve can put a rocket up the maintenance crews on Ecotricity then it will be good news. If they’ve just hoovered up the rights to plant their flag on motorway services for the next 15 years in another monopoly then no, it’s crap news. We need lots of companies competing for customers to charge at their locations.

Really, we need local councils making it a planning requirement to put charging points into every new build property. We need those same councils to make it a requirement to put chargers into every parking space constructed or modified going forward. And we need the petrol companies to start putting rapid chargers into every filling station location so electric car users actually get some choice. Just swapping all the Little Chef outlets for Starbucks isn’t the answer. You need competition.
 
VincentHanna said:
Most reviews mention the ride height (mainly as being a positive) and many reviews also refer to the fact it's built on the same platform as the XC40.

It's clearly higher, but not on the same levels as some SUVs

JGOlFSx.jpg
Click to expand...

There's not a lot in it though. The Polestar has a black lower lip that's well disguised in that photo. And the position of the light source is making the shadows uneven. The head rests look in a very similar same place too. Just the more boxy shape and white roof of the of the Polestar making it look higher.

The M3 does look like it's got a more precarious overhang at the front. I don't think I'd be rushing a speed bump in either TBH. :p
 
Bug One said:
There's not a lot in it though. The Polestar has a black lower lip that's well disguised in that photo. And the position of the light source is making the shadows uneven. The head rests look in a very similar same place too. Just the more boxy shape and white roof of the of the Polestar making it look higher.

The M3 does look like it's got a more precarious overhang at the front. I don't think I'd be rushing a speed bump in either TBH. :p
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Similar image as before, but Polestar 2 next to Model Y

47L1h2N.jpg
 
Seems like good news and new chargers and doubling capacity. Really they need to 10x capacity and then some but that’s another conversation.

I’m not sure it’s realistic though to have multiple charge networks at the same location competing for the same customers. It’s surprising Tesla managed to get in at some key locations before the door was shut. There are already loads of alternatives popping up just off the motorway way because the current situation at service stations.

Ecotricity had first mover advantage but in reality they are a tiny company who couldn’t afford to maintain the losses from the existing network let alone invest and expand it. Charge networks need deep pockets, none of them are going to make any profit until electric cars are ubiquitous. They need a huge pile of money to keep them going until then.
 
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