Bart Bought A Car

[00:00:20] Hello everyone and welcome to Kilowatt, a podcast about electric vehicles, renewable energy, autonomous driving, and much, much more. My name is Bodhi and I am your host. And on today's episode, we are going to sit down with Bart Bouchotts and Bart's going to tell us what car he finally picked. Now, if you don't know, in 2024, Bart came to me and he's like, Hey, I'm looking for a new vehicle. Would you like me to come on the show and give you my thoughts on the vehicles that I test?

[00:00:49] First of all, I said yes right away because Bart can come on the show anytime he wants. I love Bart. He's a great guest and a good friend. So always happy to have Bart on. But second, Bart lives in Ireland and he has access to a lot of vehicles that I don't. And if you've ever heard Bart before, he is very detail oriented. So where I am, I'm not. So having somebody on that can provide a really good review of the features of a vehicle,

[00:01:19] what he likes and doesn't like about the vehicle is, I think, valuable. So Bart came on and he talked about a bunch of vehicles. And if you just go back in the Kilowatt library and you search for Bart Bouchotts, you're going to see a bunch of cars that he reviewed. And Bart went deep for us. He reviewed a lot of different vehicles from Volkswagen vehicles to BYDs to Polestar's, the whole gamut.

[00:01:46] I would encourage you to go back and listen to those episodes if you were curious as to what Bart thought about those vehicles. And listen, Bart and I recorded this episode shortly after Christmas, 2024. I am recording this intro on February 3rd, 2025. And this episode will be released sometime in March, early March of 2025.

[00:02:10] So I will try very hard to remember to add the episode, like links to the episode in the show notes. But if I don't email me and I'll provide them for you as my punishment for not providing them in the notes.

[00:02:25] But I'll try very hard to add the links to the episodes in the notes. But anyway, Bart finally. But anyway, a vehicle has been chosen and Bart is here to tell us which vehicle it was and why he chose it. So let's welcome Bart to the show. My absolute pleasure, Bodhi. Always nice to talk to you, especially during the holiday season when everyone's in a good mood, although there's some wibbly wobbly timey-wimey. So people won't hear it in holiday mood.

[00:02:52] Yeah, yeah. Bart, the last time that we talked, you had not purchased a car yet. You were looking at the Ford Capri. And what was the other one that you were looking at? The Capri had reached the top of the list. The ID7 was second and the Ioniq 6 was third. And I joked to you that unless Polestar finally ring me, then obviously I'll be going for the Capri.

[00:03:19] Less than 24 hours after you published the show, my phone rang. Hi, this is, I won't say his name, from Polestar. We finally have the car you want. I was like, what? So yeah, I am since about two months now with the very happy owner of a 2025 model year Polestar 2, which is not actually available yet.

[00:03:43] But they got five of them into Ireland as a preview and they offered me my choice. And so I didn't get to choose everything about the car, but I did get to pick from five. And they kind of forced me to do something I would never have done, which is go for the leather shiny interior instead of the base interior. So I kind of ended up with a nicer car than I've trusted myself to buy. But they also, because it's for various reasons, they also gave me five grand off.

[00:04:10] So I basically got a free upgrade to the shinier interior, which I will, you know, hey, lovely, right? And I got my car, which is even more important. So let's talk about what, I mean, just so everybody can keep this in their mind's eye, what color did you get? Let's start with the exterior. They call it Storm, which you insist is a bluey gray. I'm colorblind, so I see gray, but it's a darky sort of a gray inspired by a thundercloud.

[00:04:39] I think that's why it's called Storm. They don't do shouty colors, Polestar. They're all very, very subtle. And yeah, I would have liked a shouty blue, but actually it's very nice. So I'll take it. And then because they gave it to me basically without a choice, I have the, what is it, the ash veneer with some sort of ventilated leather inside. What do they call it? Charcoal ventilated leather and ash veneer.

[00:05:07] It's very pretty. And there are actually pictures that will exist on the internet by the time you publish this show of the exterior and the interior. So people don't have to listen to me describe it in weird ways. Basically, the seats are a creamy sort of a color. There is a lovely ash veneer on things to highlight things. And the rest of the interior is a charcoal gray. Yeah, it's a really nice looking car. Let's just start at the beginning here.

[00:05:32] So for the listeners who haven't followed along on my 18 month journey to get here, it's been a while. But basically I had a Tesla Model 3, the long range version, and it was from the 2022 model year. So I literally, I got the first of that model year into Ireland. I seem to have the thing for getting the first of a new model of car because literally the first both of them that arrived into Ireland, I got one of those. And so it's the long range version I went with.

[00:06:00] No, actually, sorry, it was the standard range version I went with and the rear wheel drive. So basically zero bells and whistles. I went to Tesla's website. I left everything at default, changed it to blue and hit purchase. And so that's what I'm coming from. I didn't upgrade to advanced autopilot or whatever it's called, let alone full self-driving, which A, isn't available in Ireland. And B, I prefer my software to be written before I pay for it. You know, it's a minor thing. So that's kind of what I'm comparing it to.

[00:06:30] And I didn't, I wanted a new car and I didn't want to lose anything apart from I had lost, I'd fallen out of love with Tesla, I think is fair to say. Because when I got the Tesla, I loved it. I just enjoyed driving it. It was a fun car to drive. And then these little niggles built up to the point where I started to actually, at the end, I actually disliked my own car. I sort of felt ick driving around in my own car. And I was like, I'd make good money for this. Why do I feel ick? This is ridiculous.

[00:06:59] So I think the first thing that got me a bit cranky was whenever I'd hear the news on your show and NHTSA are saying blah-de-blah to Tesla and Tesla are not playing ball. And NHTSA said this and Tesla said no. I didn't like the attitude towards safety regulators because I like safety. I think it's kind of important. And then I didn't, I got a bit cranky when they stopped. They disabled sensors my car has because Elon wants to go all cameras all the way.

[00:07:25] And I was like, well, I paid money for those sensors and they will make it better in bad visibility. Use them. I didn't like that. And every time you play clips from the earnings call, I was like, this feels like a cult rather than a company. Because you'd listen to the forward earnings calls and there'd be dry techie stuff and finance-y stuff. You'd listen to all the other earnings call and it's like an earnings call. And you listen to the Tesla earnings call and it's like a fan event.

[00:07:54] And then I started paying attention to governance, which is very boring. And I realized that the entire board, which is supposed to be supervising the company, is actually Elon's mates. And he's controlling the board, whereas the board is supposed to be the thing that governs a company and keeps it on the straight and narrow. And I was like, I don't trust this not to blow up. And if it blows up, this car completely depends on software updates on the cloud. Could I end up with the world's most expensive brick? I was like, you know, like that.

[00:08:24] And 2024 happened and the less said the better. And I just was like, I don't want to give my money. This is not what I want to do. This is not what I want to do. So I decided to try find an alternative that I didn't have to do that. And what I really wanted. So my sort of my hit list of eight things I wanted in order of importance. So the first thing is I didn't want to lose any functionality because, you know something, it's nice having a modern EV. Really nice. I wanted to keep that. I like my car to be pretty.

[00:08:53] I like my car to be easy to use on the inside and the outside. I like to cycle. So I want an option of a tow bar so I don't have to keep shoving the bike in and out of the boot anymore. I would like to spend somewhere between 50 and 70k. 55 would be nice. But I'll go up to 70 if you force me. I want range. I want more range because there are parts of Ireland where the charging infrastructure is suboptimal. And I have relatives who live there.

[00:09:20] And so I really want to be able to get up and down without having to think about these things. I am a big fan of software interfaces that aren't cluttered. I don't like shiny bling. I like it to be simplistic so that I can find what I need when I need it. And I'm an Apple person. So I kind of want an Apple CarPlay. So I want a nice, clean software interface with CarPlay. And ideally speaking, I'd like a physical design I actually love. So not just a physical design I can tolerate, but one I'd really, really, really like.

[00:09:49] And then my last thing on my list was I'd like a nice shade of blue, which is completely childish. But hey, I'm a big kid. That's what cars are to a lot of people. So I didn't get everything on my hit list. But there's basically, if you zoom out, there's no difference in functionality to what I had in my Tesla without paying for the extra autopilot features. Because no one that I found offers an equivalent to advanced autopilot, let alone FSD.

[00:10:19] So if you're bought into advanced autopilot, you can't change brand without losing something, is what I've discovered. But I hadn't, so I haven't. But like you said, buddy, the car's gorgeous. Like, I don't just tolerate it. I love it. It is assertive. It's not shouty like a BMW. Definitely not cuddly. And it kind of looks like it's doing 90 while it's parked in your driveway.

[00:10:47] It's very poised. It's a gorgeous car. It is. There is an official tow bar option, which I have ordered. It will be fitted in February. I got it for 55k, which is pretty much exactly what I was hoping to spend. Because that's equivalent to what I would have spent on upgrading the Model 3 to a newer Model 3. I have a range of 620 WLP. That's kilometers, not miles. Which is something like the worldwide something-something standard.

[00:11:17] How close is that to reality? Not very, because the car is very, very accurate at estimating its own range. And it says 540 kilometers. And I believe it. But the official spec with the official test is 620. So I guess that lets you compare it to other models, but it's not practical. That's still like 300. I'm doing the math here. I think that's 330 miles. That sounds right. Yeah.

[00:11:47] Which is, you know, on a little island like Ireland, that's pretty darn good. Yeah. Because Ireland is not a big place. So it's pretty darn good. The UI inside is superb. And I have CarPlay. Like I say, it's gorgeous inside and out. I didn't get my shade of blue. But like you say, the Storm is nice. I would never have chose it. But now that I have it, I actually really do like it. Which is one of those weird things. It looks nicer on planet Earth than it did on the internet. If that makes sense.

[00:12:17] So what I've ended up with, basically, is the Plus Pack version. So in terms of the physical design, I always loved the front and the side of the Model 3. I think they look gorgeous from the front and they look lovely from the side. And I never liked the back. Now, the newest year, what was it? The Tartan or whatever they call the rejiggered last year. Highland. I knew it had something Scottish. I prefer what they've done to the back of the newer one.

[00:12:47] I think it looks a little bit better. But I never did quite like the back of the Model 3. Whereas I just love the Polestar from all sides. The panoramic roof is stunning. Like, the Tesla had one and it's very nice. But this one is even more stunning. And for reasons of zero practical value, there's a little Polestar icon projected onto the glass roof for people outside to admire at night. Oh. Doesn't actually achieve anything.

[00:13:15] But I kind of like the little bit of whimsy thrown in. It's okay. Yeah. Okay, fine. That's a bit of, you know. You have very nice front and rear LED bars. And the one on the back does nice little dances when you turn the car on. And so it's very pretty. And the one on the front is pretty as well. But actually, it's also genuinely intelligent. So they look nice and they give the car a distinctive look. But actually, the beam has two magic tricks.

[00:13:41] So as you steer, it focuses the light where your wheels are pointing. So as you're coming up to a junction or whatever, and you're already turning into it, you can see where you're going, not where the nose of the car is currently pointing, which is actually very nice on country roads. And it's also adaptive. So if a car is coming towards you, it dips parts of the headlight to stop you blinding the driver while still giving you full headlight on the side of the road and, you know, where there might be potholes and things. That's nice.

[00:14:10] Which is very clever and, yeah, smart, right? Genuinely smart. All the four doors have down lights so you can not step in puddles, which is a luxury I didn't have in the Tesla. And I'm now going, oh, I live in Ireland. This is actually good. So I kind of like that. The other thing I love is there's a kick sensor under the tailgate or the boot to me or the trunk, whatever word we want to use. So assuming you have any key, be it a physical one or a virtual one,

[00:14:39] assuming the car is unlocked and or you have a key anywhere vaguely around you, you just kick your foot in and out under the back of the car and the trunk opens. And then you put your stuff in and you do the same again and the trunk closes, which is fantastically useful. And also there's two buttons up there, close and close and lock. So when you come back with your grocery shopping and stuff, you take everything out of the car, you hit close and lock, and you walk away. And you don't have to trust that it will auto lock, which it will.

[00:15:09] I'm paranoid. I always expressly locked the Tesla. And I do the same on this car. In terms of space, practically speaking, they seem the same to me. The front space is the same. I don't use it a lot. That's where I keep the kind of stuff for in case of emergency that I don't need all the time. And the trunk seems very similar. It's slightly different shape. So while I'm waiting for my tow bar, I still have to put the bike in and out. And it's easier to get the bike in and out.

[00:15:39] It's just, I don't think there's more liters of space in there, but it just seems better. It might just be actually that the seats fold down flatter. So you don't have to try to get the back wheel up on a little rise as you're getting the bike all the way in. But lots of space back there, which is great. There's also a really cool little flip-up divider in the middle of the trunk. So if you have small things that you don't want moving about, you just flip up this little divider and then you have two trunks.

[00:16:08] That's nice. And I didn't realize how important it was until I went to visit my mom who gave me a giant big box of vegetables. And I was like, well, normally when I put these in the car, they go left, right. And this time I just was able to put up the little divider, put the veg in, and when I got home, they were exactly where I left them. I was like, oh, okay. So that's why that's there. That's cool. And inside, it feels, it's the most Tesla-like inside.

[00:16:39] Because you know me and you know my feelings on button barf. You know my feelings on clutter everywhere, right? I never said nice things about cars that were full of stuff on the inside. I always liked that minimalist, IKEA-like feel of the Tesla. And the Polestar being Scandinavian is every bit as IKEA feeling as the Tesla was in there. And I like it. It has little cubby holes and stuff, but they are smaller than the little cubby holes in the Model 3.

[00:17:08] So I found myself having to be a bit less of a pack rat, which is probably for the better. But I did notice that when I took everything out of the old car and I tried to put all the same junk into the new car, I didn't have room for everything. So they're smaller. And also inside, whatever way the shape of the cabin is, it feels less roomy.

[00:17:31] It feels like a four-seater car, not a full five-seater, which to me, the Model 3 always felt like a full five-seater, especially because you have the fully flat back floor. Whereas on the Polestar, presumably something to do with the rear-wheel drive or whatever, there is a tunnel. And so even though it's an EV, there is a tunnel where normally you'd see the transmission or whatever it is that runs up there in a regular car.

[00:17:55] There is a tunnel, so it really does feel like two very comfortable seats back there. And when you fold down the armrest, they have two big coffee cup holders in their little fold-down rest. And it feels like it's designed for four adults in great comfort, but not five. Which is fine because there's two of us, so it works for me. But it's a notable difference. And it's just full of tiny little things they thought of.

[00:18:22] Little, oh, someone put a lot of thought into this. Little touches that just surprise and delight you. Little attentions to detail. Like I've already mentioned the tailgate having two close buttons, a close and a close and lock. And what I love is you never have to worry, how do I unlock this car? Because the gesture to unlock the car is simply to pull on the door handle. If there's a key nearby, it will open. If there isn't, it won't. And the gesture to explicitly lock the car is to push the door handle.

[00:18:49] And it is the most natural thing in the world when you step out of the car to push the door handle and hear that very reassuring clunk and to see the mirrors spin in. I say, yeah, that's perfect. And the other thing, I didn't know it was important until we had it. It turns out that a big niggle on long road trips has always been that on the Tesla, the only person who is in easy control of the volume and play pause is the driver.

[00:19:16] Because faffing about on the touchscreen is always a pain in the backside. And the driver has the tactile controls on the steering wheel. And I have those in the Polestar as well. Everything is mirrored. So you know the way in the Tesla, it's media on the left and ADAS on the right. It's the opposite way in the Polestar. So my media is now on the right and the ADAS on the left. It took me a little while to change the volume instead of changing the set speed of the cruise control. But I got there.

[00:19:49] And so there's that. There's also the center console if you want to faff about with a touchscreen. Or there's a big tactile, nerdy little circular knob in the middle of the center console right where the passenger and the driver could reach it, which you can get entirely by feel. And you twist it to change the volume and you push it to play pause. And so if you're listening to a podcast or whatever and you just have an idea, oh, I want to talk about the shopping next week or whatever.

[00:20:16] Me, the better half, either of us just tap that big easy to reach button. Turns out to be really useful and just made the trips way nicer. I would never have thought in the abstract, oh, what I really need is a volume knob. But it's really nice to have a volume knob. So there you are. I will say, if I could just interrupt for a second and give you one of my wife's bugaboos is the heating and cooling. She doesn't like the automatic stuff.

[00:20:45] But if you turn on the manual heating and cooling, I really wish there was a way to separate out the kids in the back because the kids don't always want it to be hotter or colder. But it's all one temperature and it just seems like you should be able to say the kids in the back are at this temperature. The people up front are at this temperature. That's one of those things that really bugs me about the Tesla. Yeah, and I don't think the Polestar would help you there because the Polestar divides the car left and right.

[00:21:15] So I can have one temperature and the better half can have another temperature. But I don't think the back get to have a third option. I don't think we get. So it's better. It's perfect for the two of us. But it's not what you need. It's not what you need, unfortunately. In terms of then the software on the center console. So I'll talk about the driving experience separately because that to me is a whole different kettle of fish. You know, just the general software interface, right?

[00:21:42] The whole thing, everything Polestar shares the same aesthetic, right? From the moment you go to the website to the moment you get the brochure to the moment you get into the car. It's all this square boxes. Polestar is square boxes, square boxes, square boxes, square boxes. That's their look. It's their sort of minimalist Ikea. It feels like Kallax shelves from Ikea to me. The car is Kallax shelves. So is my house, which is great. And so the interface is very much like that.

[00:22:10] So it's also Android Auto, which means you have a full Google App Store and it has full CarPlay. So if you're in the Android universe, you have very tight integration with your Google stuff. And if you're in the Apple universe, you have very tight integration with the Apple stuff. And at this stage now, I've experienced a few different variants of CarPlay. And it would appear that Polestar are using all of the APIs because they're not only taking over the center console.

[00:22:39] They're also communicating with the dashboard through Apple CarPlay. So when Apple Maps is doing navigation, it's augmenting the driver's display on the dashboard with Apple Maps-based information, which I hadn't seen in other cars that do CarPlay. You know, the CarPlay is stuck on the center console and that's that. Whereas here, it's deeper. It's talking at a way deeper level to the rest of the car's OS, which I was a bit afraid of. Oh, this car is Google first.

[00:23:09] I'm an Apple first person. How's this going to be? And the answer is great. They're using all the APIs. They're working really well together. You don't feel like, oh, we tolerate Apple or whatever. And again, I'm coming from the Tesla where the only support for Apple is Bluetooth. The Bluetooth API, that's it. So, you know, yeah, it's better than that. And again, you have the full app store. You can lay out your icons. It's a giant big, it feels like a big Android tablet sitting in the middle of the car, to be honest. But it works. It's a nice interface and it's a nice quality screen.

[00:23:39] And you have the dashboard we'll talk about later. It has all the cloudy stuff. So I have a Polestar ID instead of a Tesla ID. It synchronizes all of my settings. If I get a higher car, I can pull down all of my settings. It saves the position of the seats, ties it to my key. So when I get in, the car is my shape and better half gets in. The car is his shape. All that stuff. You can have multiple digital keys. You know, it has physical keys that are more traditional. They're just traditional key fobs.

[00:24:09] You have a little mini one, which is nice and small, which is what I use all the time. It has no buttons. It's just when you have the key fob with you, the car works. And then there's a really old-fashioned big, clunky one with like a button for unlock, a button for lock, a button for open the trunk. That's the spare key. That just stays in the house, to be honest. I use the little key fob, key fob. What else? Again, it's kind of similar. There is...

[00:24:35] Oh, actually, yeah, the big thing I had marked down here is the range estimates are accurate. Astonishingly accurate. I have... I think I've griped on Telegram in the Tesla chat with Alice and yourself and a few others. I've griped about the speculative fiction that is the Tesla range estimates where you get in and it says, you have 420 kilometers. It's like, no, I don't.

[00:25:01] And you set off on a big, long cross-country journey and you're 15 kilometers... So you're 10 kilometers down the road and your range has fallen by 15 kilometers. And then you go into panic mode. I'm burning through these miles way quicker than the physical miles. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And then eventually it settles down and becomes vaguely accurate when you get under 50% of the battery. The Polestar blew my mind.

[00:25:25] The first big road trip we did was literally cross-country, coast-to-coast, Dublin-to-Galway, back to Dublin. And it projected that when I arrived at my brother's house, I would have 37% of my battery left and I arrived with 38%. Okay, that's a bit of a fluke. So we stopped off in the Tesla supercharger because it's actually open to non-Tesla. So that was my first ever time using the Tesla app to charge a Polestar. Flawless.

[00:25:55] Worked absolutely flawlessly. So I did a Tesla supercharge, set off for home, full cross-country trip again. It predicted we'd get home with 38% and we got home with 42%. I was like, okay. So this is the opposite of everything I've experienced. And while you're driving along, it tells you the expected range at your destination. And instead of seeing it become ever less pleasant, all you see as you're driving is it creeping up by a kilometer or so every hour. So, oh, you'll arrive at 38%.

[00:26:24] No, you'll arrive at 39%. No, you'll arrive at 40%. The sense of comfort you get from the fact that the estimate is accurate and if it guesses wrong, it makes it seem worse than it is. I can't overestimate how much nicer that is. It just puts you at ease. I have zero worry in this car that its range is not what it tells me on the dashboard. And I never, ever, ever, ever, ever said that in all my years of owning the Model 3. I just got cranky at it.

[00:26:54] A lot. Can we go back to the charging on the Tesla network? Because I'm not sure a lot of Americans know, and maybe even the Canadian folks that listen to this show, everything in Europe is CCS2. So, you don't even have a different connector. No. Literally, the only thing holding you up from charging on a supercharger or somebody who didn't have a Tesla charging on a supercharger before was Tesla allowing it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:27:49] Okay. Plug in your car. And you plug it in, and then it says, good to go. And then from then on, it behaves exactly like normal on the Tesla apps. And then you push notifications when you're at whatever percent telling you to get back to your car within the next 10 minutes or we'll charge you extra. Exactly like what I would have had before. My credit card was still on file with Tesla because I always paid them the $9 or $9 a month for the extra internet connectivity. Oh, there's another little thing.

[00:28:16] I get free internet connectivity that includes over-the-air updates without having to connect my car to my Wi-Fi. Thank you, Polestar. It's actually invaluable. For life or for a time period? Two years, and it's with T-Mobile. So, after that, it will be less than I was paying for the Tesla. I don't remember the exact price. It was about half the price. Oh. And that's after two years. So, pretty good.

[00:28:42] And, yeah, so once you're plugged in and stuff, it's so easy. And the Tesla app just updates you and you can see the speed you're charging at and all that kind of stuff. So, it was perfect. Went for a coffee. By the time we'd finished drinking our coffee, the car was full. Set off. Just the same experience. Got a lot of really funny looks. A lot of really funny looks. And I pulled up in the Polestar and all these Tesla owners. That's never going to work. That does work. Huh? That was fun.

[00:29:12] There's also an app. But Tesla get points here. Tesla's app is ahead. There's no two ways about it. The Tesla app has more features than the Polestar app. I do notice the cadence of releases on the Polestar app is still much faster. So, every software update brings me more goodies on the Polestar, whereas the Tesla one is usually just bug fixes. Bug fixes. And every now and then, there's a new feature. So, they may catch up with each other, but they certainly haven't yet.

[00:29:38] I didn't see any other app in all of my test driving that was equivalent to Tesla's. They were first, and they still have a lead. But at the same time, it gives me the really important stuff. And again, the UI is exactly like it is in the car, right? It's all square boxes everywhere. But I get basically an overall status at the top of the app. So, there's a screenshot that will be in the show notes that will exist telling me that when I took the screenshot, the car was at 51%.

[00:30:05] It was charging at 6.9 kilowatts, which is my home charger, which is terrible compared to what you get in a supercharger. And that it would be doing it until 28 minutes past 6 in the morning, which is fine because I get cheap electricity to late. And then you have a big square grid for its main features, right? You can check the status of the locks. Is the car locked? Are the doors open? Is the trunk open? You can remotely lock and unlock, but you can't open the trunk. But again, you have the kick sensor. So, do you really care?

[00:30:34] I don't know. But you can't, which you can with the Tesla. You get control over the climate. You can set timers to make the climate come on automatically. You can turn that on or off. You can see what the current temperature is. It has an air quality index in there, so you can see the quality of your air. Mine apparently is good, according to the screenshot. You can manage your charge limit, set a charging schedule, just like on the Tesla. And like on the Tesla, you can see where is my car.

[00:31:02] And then the other screens are basically some information about the car. I didn't screenshot that because I don't really want the whole world to know my VIN number and all that kind of stuff. But that stuff that's at the bottom of the Tesla app is a page of its own. And then the manual is in there, and you can get help from Polestar. That's, you know, and you can manage your account. So it's, you know, it's 65% of what the Tesla app has. Do you know what I miss most about the Tesla app? The playfulness of the fact that it's a picture of the car

[00:31:32] and that it's a picture of your car in your color. It's a silly thing, but, you know, the square grid is not exciting looking on the Polestar app, whereas the Tesla app looked cool. Just, you know, it's nice. There's also a widget for the home screen if you're an iPhone user, and it's a square box with text in it. That's very nice typography, and it tells you all the useful information, and it has no sense of whimsy. It doesn't have a picture of your car.

[00:32:00] It's just the Polestar logo tells you what time it updated the data, what the current charge status is, and it shows where the car is, which on my screenshot I have conveniently blanked out. Yeah. So the big change for me was what it's like when you're driving, because in the Tesla you have the one center console, which is landscape, and what, about a third of it-ish? The side nearest the driver is the dashboard,

[00:32:28] and the other two-thirds-ish are the, you know, the entertainment system or whatever. Yeah. So in the Polestar, it's separated. So the center console is just for that two-thirds of things on the Tesla, and it's a full portrait-style iPad-y thing, same size of screen, just the other orientation. And then the driver's information is in the traditional place. It's a traditional shaped and placed dashboard, but it is pixels from corner to corner.

[00:32:56] It is a giant, big, beautiful screen. A little bit of a matte feel, so it doesn't feel like a screen. It feels more like e-ink, but it's colorful, it's nice, and it can do whatever it wants to do because it's entirely virtual, so it's not stuck only showing you two dials or whatever. So this is what you're talking about is the instrument cluster behind the steering wheel. Yes. Yeah, okay. Is that what you guys call it? Yeah, we call it a dashboard. We still call it a dashboard,

[00:33:23] but I think in some parts of North America, even the display for the media controls would also be considered part of the dashboard. Ah, okay. So the center, yeah, okay, I see what you mean. Yeah, so it's the driver-y bit behind the steering wheel. Okay. And it's broken into very distinct regions where related stuff is together, so it's extremely easy on the eye,

[00:33:50] and it's extremely good at telling you what you want when you want it. So the screen is dominated by what I sort of call a line-drawing version of the map. It's the same information as you would get on Google Maps or Apple Maps, but it's minimized so that it's very undistracting. So if you don't have navigation on, it just shows you what's ahead of you. And if you do have navigation on, it superimposes your next turn.

[00:34:18] It draws in blue where you're going through the next junction and stuff like that. So all the usual stuff you'd expect to see. Lane information appears as you get closer to a junction, all that kind of stuff. And there's a little sort of a tiny little notification on the bottom that tells you how your trip is. So there's a screenshot in the show notes, and you can see at that time, I had an hour and 13 minutes to go, 102 kilometers to go, and I would arrive a little bit before 2 p.m. So that's sort of the main map, and that's very pleasing to have there

[00:34:47] and to always just be able to glance down and see your next turn and so forth. And as you get closer, it kind of zooms in. So if you get to a weird junction, you're never in any doubt, what should I be doing? Great. All the battery stuff is off to the right. Very much like the Tesla, you have that power bar. So the white line in the middle means I am neither drawing nor using electricity, or I'm neither using nor putting in electricity. If you put the foot down, you get an angry orange goes off to the right, showing you how much electricity you're pulling out of your battery.

[00:35:16] And when you use regen, a reassuring white goes to the left that shows you how much you're putting back into the battery. And you may notice that I took that shot very shortly after leaving the house on a cold winter morning, and it said that a good chunk of my regen was missing because the battery was not yet heated up, which is why there's a hatched area. And then you have a phone-style battery indicator saying I had 97%, and a range in kilometers, which at that time was 530.

[00:35:46] And then the left is what I call sort of the state of the rules of the road kind of stuff, right? So it has your gear indicator because I don't know what the point is on a car that only has forward, backward, and neutral. I don't know why it needs to tell me because I think I'd notice if I was in reverse. I think I might notice that, but you know, anyway. The most important thing you have is your current speed, and then below that is what you currently have set on the adaptive cruise control. So your current speed is the biggest thing, then your set speed is below that.

[00:36:15] And then to the side of that is where road traffic signs appear. And I took this screenshot at a very carefully chosen moment. So the first of the two numbers, the 60 is always there. That's the current speed limit. And then the number behind it only appears when there's a change in speed limit a few hundred meters away, and that's the next speed limit. And so it's usually not there at all, but if it needs to tell you, hey, we're about to drop you down to 50, as it is in this case, it appears in small behind the current limit.

[00:36:45] And it's really nice. And it also seems to use its cameras to detect road signs like no overtaking, because you will see the car tell you, hey, you're not allowed to pass here, as was the case when I took that screenshot, which is really nice. So that's the white car next to the red car, the little, with the little circle, that's don't, do not pass. Yes. So that's, in Ireland, that's a traffic sign for no passing. So basically you're the white car because everything's mirror image to you, remember? And you're not allowed to be where the red car is.

[00:37:14] You're not allowed to be on the wrong side of the white car, if that makes sense. Yeah, that does. And then the bottom bit then is the current state of the ADAS, which is just three icons. So you'll see that the icon that's lit up looks like a speedometer. That's the adaptive cruise control. On the right side, you have a wheel with a hand, which is your pilot assist, as Paul Stratt call it. They do not ever use the word auto. They never say auto steer, auto drive. They don't ever call the word auto. The only word they use is assist.

[00:37:44] So that's your, it's your automatic steering like you'd have on the Tesla, but they call it pilot assist. And I like that they put a hand on it. It's like, no, no, this is what you're supposed to do. Your hand is supposed to be here, even when you turn this on, which is a nice touch. And then the third icon with the car above the speedometer tells you whether or not adaptive cruise control has locked on to another vehicle in front of you. So I was out on the open road with no one in front of me, so the car isn't lit up. But when you're trailing someone

[00:38:13] and the adaptive cruise control is proactively slowing you down, that lights up yellow. Oh. Hey, I'm holding you back here. And if you hit the button to change the follow distance, that car sort of moves up to make room for a scale. And then as you're changing the follow distance, that scale changes. And then the car animates back down again. And when you turn on these cruise control things, they animate up to tell you they've turned on. And if you're a bold boy

[00:38:42] and you don't put your hand on the wheel, the steering wheel icon, first it pulses orange, then it pulses red and beeps at you. And I presume it'll then turn off, but I've never been bold enough to let it do that to me. But I presume that's what it'll do, right? And then along the top, you get the traditional icons like my running lights were on. And the one that looks like a windscreen wiper with a raindrop on it is the automatic wipers. So they're always ready and waiting, which in Ireland,

[00:39:11] was a good thing. So... So this... Yeah. So what I'm hearing, Bart, is like, I love my Tesla and I'm still so pleased with this car. However, it does things when I'm doing, you know, the FSD trial, for instance, which I think I got last night and I haven't played with it yet. But when I'm in that, sometimes it does things that I just don't quite understand.

[00:39:40] It looks like Polestar is communicating to you in various ways what it's thinking, whether it's, you know, hey, I'm going to start slowing down because I can see ahead of us. Maybe it's even around the corner. Maybe you can't, you can't see it. But because of all the data that it gets from Google or whoever is getting its traffic data, everybody around this corner has slowed down. I'm going to start slowing you down and then I'm going to indicate why I'm slowing you down. Yeah, it's... Now, one of the things I will say

[00:40:10] that Tesla has is that you have that line diagram of what the AI thinks the world looks like in the Tesla, which you don't have an equivalent of that in the Polestar. And I think that's actually a very clever idea of Tesla so that at least you have some sort of idea. Has the AI not seen that wheelie bin that it's about to run into or whatever, right? So I kind of like the reassurance I used to get on the Tesla where you, you know, or it would show the traffic light and then tell you, hey,

[00:40:40] I see this as a green light. Now, I've seen it be wrong, which was the opposite of reassuring. When, because in Ireland we have traffic lights with arrows and Tesla's AI did not comprehend them. So there could be simultaneously a green light and a red light, but in my lane it's very, very, very much thou shalt not go and Tesla went, yeah, green, bing! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

[00:41:13] no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, know the speed limit. The Polestar knows the speed limit. On the Tesla, you have an option that when

[00:41:39] you turn on adaptive cruise control, it jumps you straight to the nearest speed limit, which I really like. And the Polestar doesn't have that. It puts you at your current speed and then you toggle up and down in increments of five. But neither do Tesla nor the Polestar, when they see the speed limit change, reduce your speed. The Tesla would say, oh yeah, I see that you're now in a 50k zone and you were at 80. So I put you up to 80 and I'm just going to leave you here.

[00:42:03] I said, why? You know. And the Polestar does the same. So yeah, whatever. Now the VW I test drove, it was brilliant about ramping up and down and up and down the speed limit. But neither of these two cars do that. I don't know why. I think with FSD, Tesla will slow you down. It must do, right? It must do. And I think even with advanced autopilot where you have auto navigation, I am 90% sure it will slow you down as well. Because otherwise that would just be

[00:42:33] disastrous. Mm-hmm.

[00:42:36] Mm-hmm.

[00:43:04] So it's your master switch. And then the button to its right turns, toggles basically the addition of autosteer or pilot assist. And the button to the left in Ireland does nothing. According to the manual, it does something that sounds like speed limit aware cruise control. And it says only available in some regions. So maybe there's a legislative reason why it can't do it here. I do

[00:43:30] not know. But I think that button does what I want. It just won't do it for me. And then you have the up and down buttons to obviously increase or decrease your speed. And then sort of to the right of them is your buttons for changing the follow distance. They look sort of like the earth symbol to me, right? The parallel lines, but they're basically follow closer, follow further away. And then the really nice thing is the plus button has two icons next to it. The second icon looks like a repeat

[00:43:55] button. That means resume cruise control exactly where I'd left you. So you're coming up to a junction or something. You turn it off to come to a nice stop at the junction. You set off and instead of having to toggle it back, you just go resume. And it goes, oh, okay. I know exactly where you were. And then the thing that the Polestar does better than the Tesla that has made such a difference to how much I love driving it with the automation on the Tesla, because I didn't pay extra for advanced

[00:44:25] autopilot. There was no lane change. So the only way I could change lanes on my Tesla was to tap the brake to turn off all the automation, turn on my turn signal, change lanes, then double tap the stock to go back to where I was. And so you were always mentally thinking because you could jerk the wheel, but then you end up steering like a lunatic, right? You look like you don't know you're not in control of your car. You're going to terrify everyone around you. So I hate doing that. So you tap the brake, change lanes, turn it back on, tap the brake. And I used to just stay in the

[00:44:54] slow lane because there was too much hassle. I don't want to do this. And Polestar have a very different approach. The act of turning on the turn signal suspends auto steer, but keeps adaptive cruise control on. And as soon as you turn the turn signal off, it goes back to where it was. So if you're a nice person, you obey the rules of the road, what you would naturally do is check your mirrors, turn on your turn signal, change lanes, turn off your turn signal and go back to where you were. And on the

[00:45:21] Polestar, that's equivalent to suspend auto steer, re-enable auto steer. You never have to think about it. The cognitive load is zero. You just change lanes when you want to by doing the proper thing, check your mirror, turn on your signal and off you go. It is such a simple thing, but it is honestly the difference that makes. It was like death by paper cuts in the Tesla. And this is the opposite. It just works. And I love it to pieces.

[00:45:45] Yeah, that's smart. That is something that irritates me too. Because I do think autopilot, especially on freeways in Arizona, works fantastic. It does irritate me that because for anybody who doesn't know, when you disengage autopilot by pulling on the steering wheel, you have to pull kind of hard, which then makes your car jerk left or right, whichever way you're pulling. And it does make it look like you're not paying attention to the road to anybody else who's

[00:46:11] behind you. Tapping on the brake is a really good option to get out of autopilot, but it would be nice if it was smart enough to know, and it is, it would be nice if it was programmed to be smart enough to know if you hit the turn signal that you want to make that turn. And it doesn't, you know, if Tesla doesn't want to give you that feature of automatic lane chains, that's fine. Just give us the ability to pull into that next lane and then you can go back into being autopilot again.

[00:46:42] Yeah. My pet theory is that it's a way of upselling you to advanced autopilot. The fact that you then get your lane change feature. I think that's a conscious choice. It's a pain point for sure. Yeah. So the last thing I have on my list here then is performance, because this is a sporty car and the salespeople never seem to tire of telling you that this car's origin is in Volvo racing, Volvo racing, Volvo racing, Volvo racing, Volvo racing, Volvo racing, right? They love telling

[00:47:10] you, I don't even know how much or how little Volvo racing did, but they love telling you about Volvo racing. And you know something it actually shows. So when I did my test drives a year and a half ago, the first car I test drove was the all wheel drive version. And that thing was powered by magic of some kind. The thing had the sure footedness of a mountain goat. It was as light to steer as you could possibly imagine. It was no body roll whatsoever. I took that thing up to Dublin mountains

[00:47:39] and I never had so much fun in my entire life. That thing was amazing, the all wheel drive. And then I got back to the dealership and I was like, yeah, look, I know I forgot to tick the tick box on the request for the test drive to say that I really wanted to try the front wheel drive because I actually don't want the all wheel drive. And he went, oh, no problem. No one booked the other one. Do you want to have a second test drive while you're here in the front wheel drive car? And I thought, yay, right? Why not? And what I discovered was that the front wheel drive

[00:48:06] performed no better than my Tesla. And it had an awful tendency to spin the front wheels on gravel because those front wheels don't have a giant big engine block resting on them like they do in a nice vehicle. The battery is perfectly placed between the front and the rear wheels. But when you try to set off on a gravel road, you'll spin and then the traction control will kick in and slow you down. Whereas I never got that with Tesla because it was in the rear. And so I came back to the dealer

[00:48:34] and I said, look, it's a lovely car. I really like it, but I really wish it was rear wheel drive. And that's when the dealer said, well, actually, if you just wait until the next model year comes out, then it'll be moving to rear wheel drive and we'll be making the range way longer. And so that's why I ended up waiting so long for this car because Polestar would have sold me a front wheel drive car 18 months ago. I didn't want a front wheel drive car. I wanted the rear wheel

[00:48:57] drive because I felt it will be better. I'm happy to say it is. It is nicer to drive than my Model 3, which is also rear wheel drive, but it's not yet as amazing as the all wheel drive, which you wouldn't expect. So I would say the performance is about halfway between the front wheel drive one I drove, which felt the same as the Tesla and the all wheel drive, which felt like magic. So it's in between the two, but I get an extra hundred kilometers of range in exchange for

[00:49:25] giving up two wheels of driving. And you know something as much fun as the all wheel drive was, I do prefer my range. So I don't feel I made the wrong choice in that trade-off there. Um, at a practical level, I took a screenshot from the non-sensitive parts of the app. So apparently, I don't know if this is meaningful. It has 490 Newton meters of torque. And my Model 3 had 400 Newton meters of torque. I don't know what that means. Um, in terms of horsepower,

[00:49:54] it has 299 horses and the Tesla had 240 horses. Seems like a lot of horses. Uh, and the battery is way bigger. Of course, it's an 82 kilowatt battery. Um, and yeah, as you can see type two charger with CCS, uh, because that's what we all have here. It's amazing. I didn't have to, I'm still charging my Polestar on my Tesla home charger. When I visit my brother, I charge it on a generic non-branded home charger and I can go to the Tesla supercharger. I can go to any other charging

[00:50:23] network and we have a few and it just works. Nice. So I guess the final thought is, so I, I test drove a lot of cars, right? You had me on lots of times and it was great fun. Um, I think I test drove more than I would have because I enjoyed talking to you so much, but it was actually a really good experience to sort of flavor, to really sample the market, to really see what's out there. And I have discovered

[00:50:47] that almost everyone who wants to sell you an EV thinks that you're an ICE driver who wants a pretend ICE car that happens to have an electric engine and they make their cars so that they behave like ICE vehicles as if somehow that's great as opposed to an accident of history. And I loved the fact that Tesla is unashamedly an EV car company that makes the right choice for EVs to give you the most

[00:51:15] amazing driving experience. It is an EV driving experience, not an ICE driving experience. And I loved that about the Tesla and I wanted that. And there is a grand total of one other company I have found in all of my test driving who understands that fundamental point and that's Polestar. No one else I test drove has that attitude. Everyone else is trying to sell EVs to ICE drivers and I do not appreciate that. So I'm really happy I landed on the Polestar because like Tesla, it shares

[00:51:45] this mindset of I'm going to give you an amazing EV. Forget about ICE. History. Gone. And really, I adore my car. I knew I would like it, but I don't like it. I love it. I have never found so many excuses to go places in the car. When the Tesla was new, I did the same before I started to fall out of love with it. And I just adore my new car. It's so much fun to drive. And it's full of little

[00:52:10] touches, little details that someone paid attention to. And I keep finding them and they keep on making me happier every time. It's like the little things, the little things, the little things over and over again. I know Volvo aren't known for being passionate. Volvo are known for being high quality, well-designed, built like a tank, will last forever, but they're not known for being passionate. Well, the Polestar is all of those things that the Volvo is. And it's got a heart, got a sense of

[00:52:39] fun. It's got a soul. It's such an enjoyable car. It's stylish, it's sporty, and it's just fun. So I am extremely happy with it. So what are the better half's thoughts? What did he think? Loves it. He's not a car person. Basically, his attitude was, as long as I don't dislike it, it's fine. We went on our first cross-country drive, and the first thing he said was,

[00:53:07] oh, this is so much nicer. It's just, again, the little things, like being able to have full control of the AV without interfering with my driving. It was, it seems like it maybe makes less noise in there or something. It was extremely, we both arrived home after a cross-country drive, you know, all the way across Ireland and all the way home in one day. And we were both like, we're not tired. We were always tired when we did this drive before. Why are we not tired?

[00:53:37] And I think it's just all the little things mean that you arrive happier. I don't know, it was weird. It was like, I am not fatigued. I used to be fatigued. And I thought maybe it was a fluke, but that's just been true. So I had another big road trip to visit my brother Christmas Eve. Really, really enjoyed the trip. Really nice. And he, he's not short. He's tall, right? He's tall? No. No. He's very tall. Very tall, very tall. Okay.

[00:54:07] Yeah. Lots of headroom, lots of headroom under that, under that big panoramic roof. Um, like with, it was the same in the model three, uh, a child can sit behind him, not an adult. And it's exactly the same in the pole star when he has that seat as far back as it goes. Yeah. You know, like I say, a child will sit there comfortably, but an adult will be cranky. It's like being on a flight in front of a tall person or behind the tall person.

[00:54:34] Now, I know your family has EVs, like your dad is a Tesla owner. I think your brother was an ID4 owner. Sorry. Uh, my, no, we've no, no Volkswagen. So, um, yeah, my mom and my dad are both Tesla drivers, uh, a Model Y and a Model X. And so they went with the SUV style, a big one and a little one.

[00:54:54] And then my brother, uh, one of them drives a BMW i5, I think it is. It's the crossover. It's the SUV style electronic EV BMW. And then my other brother drives, um, and, an i4. So the sporty coupe sort of model of BMW. And then my sister-in-law drives an, uh, oh, what is it? The e-tron, the bigger of the two e-tron SUVs from Audi.

[00:55:22] Okay. So what are, what are their thoughts? They all, all of them afterwards said, oh, I never liked the look of the Tesla. All of them think the new car is gorgeous. My brother, my brother is insured universally. So he's legally insured to drive my car. Um, so I let him take it for a spin and he enjoyed it immensely.

[00:55:45] Um, I don't think he's getting rid of his BMW because he, he likes the shouty look of the BMW. And I don't, I don't like that more aggressive styling. Uh, but he loves his BMW. So I don't think he's going to get rid of it, but at the same time, he, he really liked it. He really liked driving it. He said it felt really compared to the, the big SUV he has, it felt a lot nippier, a lot sportier. You know, he enjoyed it.

[00:56:13] Okay. Well, Bart, thank you very much for coming on. And you made my job so easy this morning. I was, I was just hanging out around the house and you, you sent me your document and I was like, I don't have to do anything today. Bart's going to do the whole show. And you did. So Bart, thank you so much for doing that. Um, I will, cause we're recording this.

[00:56:37] It's just, it's just, uh, behind the curtain thing right after Christmas. So, uh, this, this episode actually won't go out until March, but, um, I'll make sure to put a link to wherever you decided to post this blog post. But where else can people find you? So it'll probably look different by March. I hope it looks different by March, but you'll always find me at bartb.ie because no one can spell my surname. So bartb.ie, dot IE for Ireland, in case you're wondering.

[00:57:08] Gotcha. And you also do the Let's Talk Apple podcast and Let's Talk Photography. And then you're on Alison's show with Security Bits. Did I miss something? Programming by stealth every two weeks ish when we don't go on hiatus, which we kind of do whenever holidays show up. We run on hiatus over the summer. We're kind of in pause right now because it's Christmas. Again, wibbly wobbly timey wimey. But right now we're on pause.

[00:57:33] Uh, but yeah, so, and I, I like, I find excuses to talk to you, Bodhi. I like to find excuses to talk to Alison because it's good fun to talk to Alison. Agreed. So I'll make sure to put low, the show notes. I'll put, excuse me. I'll make sure to put all of your shows in the show notes. I just had a mini stroke there. I'll put all your shows in the show notes so that people can check out what you're up to.

[00:57:59] Excellent. Thank you, Bodhi. And as I say, I don't know what I'm going to talk to you about next because now I have a car. I don't know what we'll have to find an excuse. But Bart, the amount of time that it took you to find this car, I think we just start looking tomorrow. We'll start looking tomorrow. Do you know, I've heard sillier ideas. Part of me is tempted to do a test drive in that Capri anyway. We shall see. Thank you, Bart. Appreciate you coming on. My pleasure.

[00:58:29] Okie doke. I want to thank Bart for taking the time to not only talk to us for this episode, but for all of the work that he did on the previous episodes. I can't remember. I think it was four episodes we did in total. And if I'm being honest, I didn't have to do a thing. Bart had these very detailed, informed show notes. And from there, all I did was I said, Bart, what did you think? And then Bart told us what he thought.

[00:58:56] Like it was, it was, it's very little lifting on my part. And when I say very little, I mean none. I didn't have to work at all. So thank you, Bart, for, for coming on and, and helping us out for sure. So if you want more Bart blue shots and you should, you can go to bartificer.net and check out his two podcasts. He's got Let's Talk Apple and Let's Talk Photography. But that's not all because Bart does so much more.

[00:59:25] He is working on programming by stealth with Alison Sheridan. And you can, you can check that out. It's still on bartificer.net. And then Alison's podcast, The No Silicast. Bart does a, I think it's a bi-monthly security. Well, I know it's a security segment, but I think the cadence is bi-monthly once every other week. But I'm going to be honest here. I steal Bart's takes and I talk down to my friends.

[00:59:53] I don't think Bart would want me to talk down to my friends, but it's a fun game that we play with each other. They talk down to me about all the things that I don't know, which is a lot. Mostly about construction and cars and all the other stuff. But anyway, it's a good segment. Alison and Bart are a great team. I would highly encourage you to check that out as well. You can go to podfeet.com because everything good starts with podfeet.com

[01:00:18] to check out also programming by Stealth as well as the No Silicast. All right, everybody. That is it for me this episode. If you want to email me, it's bodie, B-O-D-I-E at 918digital.com. You can also find me on X at 918digital. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you on Friday.