Polestar 3>4<5

Tricky one really. The news that Volvo had pulled although both brands being under Geely you wonder how much impact that really has. A new car being pushed at 0% doesn't look good longer term. It might get a few company bums on seats then what ? At three years who's going to pick them up ?

This whole fast charging is great for business users, I'm not so sure for owner 2 onward.

I'm looking forwards to solid state batteries and what they bring. More range ? More resilience to high speed charging ? Both ? Neither ? It's interesting (for my little geek head).

That 2028 date is UK specific. The annual % market share figures set by the previous government only applies to new, this I suspect would curtail main dealer interest in used if their incentives are loaded to new car sales by the manufacturers they represent.

There's a lot dependant on what, if any tinkering, the new government feels inclined to do.

According to howmanyleft Polestar had ~25,000 2's registered last year and 27,000+ have been registered this year.

It will be interesting to see how this develops. Dealers will remain cautious over EV stock until they see a turn in the tide by private buyers. What is going to trigger that turn ? The government could implement a polluter pays tax on fossil fuels what would the knock on effect be to the wider economy ? It's all a balancing act.

When I say fast charging I mean DC charging. Except it's not always fast, 50kW, 300kW is all DC it all has a relatively negative effect on the battery if not managed and constantly stuffing 90+% by comparison to AC charging.

I view DC charging as the 'what'll it do mister' of EVs, completely irrelevant for most users, significant for a small number. Humph prioritised distance between stops to exercise his camel bladder, as do I, EspadaIII prefers mega charges every two or three hours.

Most learn not to bother once they realise how long 80-100 takes. Leaving at 80, even with a quick stop later, usually makes for a shorter journey time, which is what yer average business driver cares most about.

Just to add an analogy with say a smart phone...

This is a bit like charging smart phones. Original USB was 5V at 0.5A... Okay for the iPhone original maybe but not great for today's phones. So we start getting more amps to charge faster. Then some thinking that if the phone/device and charger can communicate the voltage can be changed as well so we ended up with 9V (and higher) and more watts. And more amps full stop.

Today we have well over 45W charging... all going into a phone/tablet battery. Great. Even QI charging is crazy.

And eventually over a few years the battery degrades. We have all experienced this* so either live with it for a bit, pay to replace the battery or accept you've had it long enough and it's got a bit slow that you get a new one.... Bonus for the original manufacturer because you might choose them again (thinking Apple).

So did we need such rapid charging? No. Did it damage batteries? Yes. But people wanted to fast charge devices. And the shorter life of the device was a bonus to manufacturers.

* I fairly recently upgraded from a working Galaxy S9 to an S23. The phone was fine but the battery would drain quickly. I knew it was (after 6 years?) likely due to charging to full too much (fast charger) and I'd have just replaced the battery soon. But the speaker/earpiece had gone really quiet and made it not much use as a phone. It was a good phone and was great all that time, with dual SIM or SIM/SDCARD. And it had a headphone jack.

Phones also get slower with more advanced stuff in apps and in web code. But manufacturers need us to buy new more frequently. So I say rapid charging was a useful feature but also what kills a lot of phones. But hey a new battery is cheap and £600-800 every few years for a new phone is fine especially if spread 0% over 3 years.

Back to cars.... battery replacement is more expensive. New car is even more expensive. Different business models.

P,S, Why an S23 and not a Google phone? Well I liked the idea of the Google vanilla experience but that visor arrangement on the back for cameras... Please no. And some of the AI touted as good in Google phone is in Samsung phones. I can vouch for the editing of photos to remove 'things' works well.

...as someone always does, because that's the lithium ion battery people are most familiar with. But those same people put their phone batteries through a full charge-discharge cycle - maybe two - every day (and yes, possibly force unhealthy amounts of current into them) - so they will use up their probable 1000 healthy cycles in a couple of years. EV batteries, on the other hand, have battery management and cooling systems to manage the charge rate and the temperature, and can go two weeks of typical use on one charge cycle. 1000 cycles of even its relatively small battery will run my big EV over 300,000km, which is getting on for 20 years' use. And that's not even to the point where it's useless, just to where its endurance is (likely to be) reduced. My small EV has used maybe 100 of its charge cycles in three years, invariably (AC) charged to 100 percent because it wasn't designed with the option not to, and shows no loss of endurance so far. Samsung, which made the cells, has run samples well past 1000 cycles, and took 4600 cycles for capacity to fall to 80 percent. (This data is for the 94Ah battery I had in the first i3 but the 120Ah is an update of the same design.)
insideevs.com/news/338067/bmw-i3-samsung-sdi-94-ah-battery-rated-for-524000-miles/ 

With DC charging, the hazard is less charging to 100 percent than charging to 100 and leaving it there for days on end, which isn't something the time-sensitive business drivers who may have been the first users of these used EVs are likely to do.