WDB
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Post by WDB on Jan 25, 2024 11:16:06 GMT
New Polestars are appearing, to supplement the likeable but incommodious 2. My employer’s scheme would get me a 3 with a towbar for a significant but manageable monthly rate, about £150 more than an iX3. No other options in that but there’s nothing else — yellow seat belts apart — that I’d feel the need to add.
Which makes me wonder how rates for the forthcoming, smaller 4 might look. (There’s a 5 coming too, which is bigger than the 4 but smaller than the 3.) That ought to be big enough for us, and comes with — or without — the fleece-baiting talking point of a glassless rear window. I’m keen to try one to experience this feature alone, but it does look like an appealing package. It’s also the first Polestar in whose making no Volvos were harmed. Orders open next week, apparently, although who orders a £50,000 product from a brochure is a mystery to me. Try as I do to be modern, I must be old-fashioned that way.
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Jan 25, 2024 11:37:10 GMT
Don't you have to order the super duper performance pack with Polestar to get gold seatbelts ? Or, is yellow a new other option ?
A windowless rear to a car is not the end of the world as long as they've tucked the cameras away from all the crud at this time of year. Could be fun trying to reverse into a tight space with cameras caked in road salt and mud.
How many Lynk & Co or XingYue L's were sacrificed if no Volvo cars were harmed ? 🤔
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Post by EspadaIII on Jan 25, 2024 11:59:51 GMT
Given the way used electric car prices are falling, lease rates should be rising. So who knows??
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jan 25, 2024 12:01:37 GMT
Given the way used electric car prices are falling, lease rates should be rising. So who knows?? Interest rates seem set to fall, though, which should have the opposite effect. Gold is just marketer’s yellow.😛 And yes, they seem to come only in the £4,000 pack, the rest of which I don’t need. Blue seat belts were a single option in the i3S, for about £120, but were vetoed by MrsB1. |
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Jan 25, 2024 12:53:44 GMT
You mean you don't want gold brake calipers and an allen key so you can crawl around on your hands and knees on Sunday morning, on the driveway, manually adjusting the suspension for the M25 grand-prix on Monday morning ?
What's wrong with you man ? 😂
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jan 25, 2024 12:55:52 GMT
I think that’s just for the 2. The newer cars can be fettled electronically.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jan 26, 2024 12:02:09 GMT
…and in any case, I’d rather have one really good setting than endless permutations and the accompanying fear that I may not have picked the best one.
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Post by EspadaIII on Jan 26, 2024 12:27:40 GMT
Ah the good old days when proper chassis engineers set up a car properly to meet the demands of the buying public and critical journalists. The high water mark was probably the Focus Mk1, with excellent handling and roadholding on tall enough tyres to give a decent ride.
It is interesting that whenever I go overseas, cars that are seen in Britain wearing rubber bands on their wheels seem to have some air between the rims and the rubber. And the rims are steel not alloy.
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Jan 26, 2024 14:10:58 GMT
The manufacturers supply what the market customer wants. UK likes bling.
The thought of spending £2k on a set of diamond cut wheels and tyres to get caked in salt and winter crud doesn't appeal. Give me skinny, 16" donuts for when the weather is inclement every time. Costs buttons to replace them when the time comes.
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Post by EspadaIII on Jan 26, 2024 15:00:43 GMT
Espadrille once drove a rental car into a large pothole. Destroyed tyre and wheel - or so we thought. Got the spare on (in the days we had spares) and went to a local tyre place. They had a look, took the tyre off the steel rim, bashed the rim back into shape, put the tyre back on, balanced it and sent us on our way for about £20. Can't do that with alloys.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jan 31, 2024 10:48:45 GMT
I can order my 4 today if I like, for notional delivery in August. And play with the configurator, not that I’d spend my day doing that. I have to say, I really like the look of it.
I’m pleased to see that ‘privacy’ glass is a cost option, so I can leave that out. Less so that the glass roof, which even I might consider essential in the absence of the rear window, is a four-digit option too. The various de-embargoed videos suggest that rear passengers have plenty of space but they’re going to need some light back there too.
Old-fashioned, I know, but I think I’m going to need a climb on one first.
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Jan 31, 2024 11:02:19 GMT
Does that glass panel on the roof open ?
I've noticed quite a few panoramic roofs do not open and do not come with an internal blind on modern machinery.
Handy, if you like to take your tomato plants on holiday with you, miserable if you're caught in a Mediterranean heatwave and can't let the hot air out.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jan 31, 2024 11:06:41 GMT
The Polestar one is electrochromic, like the passenger windows in a 787, which (supposedly) makes a blind unnecessary. It would be nice to think there's some intelligence there that can determine whether it's parked in the kind of Mediterranean summer sun that you really want to keep out, or in a British winter where a bit of free warmth to come back to is really rather welcome.
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bpg
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Post by bpg on Jan 31, 2024 11:18:38 GMT
Last summer was brutal in Italy. Only way to dump heat was to open the roof, windows and tailgate to jettison some of the built up heat, my car has ugly kid glass and tinted panoramic roof with blind, then drive the first mile or so with the roof and windows open to give the Aircon a fighting chance, before closing everything once the car interior was closer to ambient air temp.
I can't imagine anything greenhouse shaped on wheels with clear glass and no sunblind for a glass panel roof will be particularly effective at blocking heat build up, especially a car painted black.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jan 31, 2024 11:43:00 GMT
Maybe. The CLS is dark grey, with no glass roof and no over-tinted glass. Like any car, it's oven-like to return to on a hot day and nothing removes the heat till it gets moving. But four full-open windows generally do the job. I suppose the question is more whether the 4's glass roof can keep out enough heat not to overwork the AC when stuck in a jam on the Autoroute du Soleil. (And I certainly won't be having a black one.)
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