Polestar 2 BST Edition 270 First Drive Review | The future of fun cars?
foreign petrol heads that’s worried about how the performance car fits into the EV Revolution and the pole star 2 BST Edition 270 might be what you’re after sure it’s got an awkward name as well as the requisite performance figures of a traditional EV so not a 62 miles an hour in 4.4 seconds 502 pounds for the torque etc etc but according to pole star that’s not the point of this car instead and according to them it’s all about making a performance car for nerds what they mean by that is that this is supposed to be
a car for those that love driving it’s supposed to be exciting it’s supposed to be adjustable it’s supposed to be enthralling the kind of thing that you can really you get your teeth into all things that you don’t really associate with EVS I mean yeah they’re quick but when every ev’s got say 400 horsepower what’s the point of adding more power for the performance version pole star agrees so in answer to this they’ve taken a regular two performance pack model and made some Choice modifications visual tweaks include 21 inch alloy wheels inspired by those on
the pole star one a great big stripe down the middle Black Mirror covers and a unique Battleship gray satin body wrap that’s available for an
well as improved damper responses and the ability to operate at lower gas pressure both helping comfort and handling what’s more having the adjusters positioned under the Bonnet not only looks really cool but it’s also more accessible question is how does it affect the drive so as you can probably see from the raindrops on the window it started to rain here in Spain typical we brought all the British weather Withers and the b-roll shots will likely be in lovely sunshine but I think it helps with what I want to find out which is can an EV
can an electric car be fun an enjoyable on track when you take away the performance because of course this is ballistically fast I mean 4.2 seconds to 62 miles an hour but pole star says that’s not the point of this car it’s about more than that and that’s quite an unusual approach to take with EVS because usually it’s all about impressing us with naughty 62 mile an hour times the power figures but that kind of gets a bit old what I really want to know is can it be fun in other ways despite how much
it weighs which is of course quite a lot the dampers themselves go from level one to level 22 22 is the softest that you can get and level one is the firmest this morning when it was drying on road we had it on 777 which is as the car comes and the setup the pole star recommends the standard but then we started to play around and move things but now because it’s raining and the track is wet we’ve settled on a softer setup which is 10 10 10. that means that you’ve got a more exaggerated
amount of body movement we’ll come into this tight corner here when you come off the the pedals you start to feel it come round more it’s working those tires harder and it’s less unpredictable which is good in wet weather like this that’s what you want but when it comes to driving an EV on track it’s quite a strange sensation because especially when you’re coming onto the power out of a corner you’ve usually got that engine noise and the way that it builds up and the way that the revs rise that gives you an idea of
where you are with your throttle position and how the car is putting its power down with this you don’t have that interaction you just put your foot down and then the first that you feel that maybe it’s a bit too much is when you get push at the front end like I’m getting in this so I’m coming into a corner on the brakes Rambo brakes which by the way are excellent and then coming out of the corner because most of the power’s been sent to the back and the front is lifting up a little bit
you’re getting that understeer coming out of the corner now you get that of course in petrol cars but it’s a bit more predictable you can feel it happening more in this yeah it feels a bit more binary a bit more digital as I mentioned before the brakes have got lovely feel coming out of this bank’s corner here that’s when you start to feel the front end just getting overwhelmed and where it’s on a softer setting that certainly helps it deals with the compressions really nicely it’s got a nice smooth movement I mean this is a
very very smooth track actually there’s a lot of tracks which are much much bumpier than coming into the hard braking Zone here flick it in it is good fun it moves around and I think that’s certainly helped by the softer settings and it does exaggerate it you can feel it okay we’re nearing the end of the time on track with the car now so let’s go for a reasonably quick lap it didn’t it’s still slippy but the all-wheel drive system is so so effective there is that brief delay before it sends the power more power
to the back so you do get that understeer initially coming into this fast corner now it feels like it wants to rotate it’s not totally static it’s not perhaps how you’d imagine a sort of SUV style all-wheel drive EV would behave but you do really have to adjust how you drive it because as I said it’s so much more binary and you don’t build up the same way the power doesn’t build up there’s not exactly a torque curve or power curve everything’s there just instantly coming down the street now I mean 160 kilometers an hour
just comes by so so easily and you don’t really notice it until you look at the breaking point and you think oh yes I really need to slow down now it’s turning a bit later for here you can see what they’re trying to do with this and there’s a concept I like it because we need to start moving away from electric cars all being about 0 to 62 mile an hour times because that just quickly gets boring but this isn’t boring at all I think Polestar could be onto something it’s just a shame that by
the time you see this review probably most of the cars or maybe even all of the cars are going to be spoken for who knows but as a concept I think it works in isolation the limited edition pole star 2 BST Edition 270 isn’t going to change the landscape of performance cars overnight its build numbers are strictly limited and are almost 70 000 pounds it’ll only be attainable by a lucky few however as the EV Power race spirals out of control polestar’s mission to look Beyond power and naught to 62 mile an hour figures needs
to be commended being able to adjust the handling characteristics by getting out of the car and turning a dial brings a tangible physical element to the driving experience at a time when preset Drive modes on a touch screen threaten to take that away sure it’s not perfect but the idea is promising and worth pursuing if we want to ensure that the joy of a fast car comes down to just more the numbers on an online configurator
