My New Electric Car: Polestar!

My old car hit 164,000 miles and my husband worried that it would break down. My 2007bAcura MDX served me well for all the carpools that I drove, but now I was no longer driving young soccer players around.  I found my SUV just too big, especially trying to park in Boston. I really wanted to get an electric car, but I couldn’t find one that I liked.

I was on the waitlist for the Model 3 Tesla a few years ago, but when they missed their production schedule for their second manufacturing site, and Elon Musk started acting crazy, I got a refund.

I also put down a deposit for the Lucid. They were supposed to come out with two models, but there were delays and only the high-end model came out. The car is awesome, but that was too expensive for me.

And so, like Goldilocks, I waited until an electric car came out that was “just right.” That car turned out to be the Polestar. For those who don’t know the Polestar, it’s really Volvo, which sold to a Chinese company, Zhejiang Geely Holding, in 2010. Volvo has a line of all-electric cars which I think Polestar is related to.

Polestar is jointly owned by Volvo and the automaker’s Chinese parent company, Geely. It’s truly an automaker with dual citizenship, with a headquarters based in Gothenburg and an assembly line in Chengdu.

I test drove the Polestar during the Pandemic lockdown at my house. I was really impressed.

I finally bit the bullet and got a new car. It’s the Polestar 2 and I love it. It has crazy 0 to 60 acceleration … about 2.5 seconds and it’s so smooth as it accelerates. It also has a lot of safety features that I appreciate, like auto braking when I was backing out in Chinatown and someone stepped behind my car.

The only downside is that the total battery charge at 90%, which is what they recommend, is about 210 miles so it’s not that far but it meets my needs most of the time. My husband and I wanted to drive to Maine to a clam shack, but I didn’t charge it the night before, so we didn’t have enough charge to go there and back, and we ended up going to the North Shore instead.

Also, the back window doesn’t have a wiper so sometimes it can be hard to see out of the back, especially where there is light snow. I find the back window to be small and partially blocked by the back seat headrests as well when I look behind to back out. This is mitigated by the huge screen from the backup camera but I do find the visibility looking backward to be less than optimal.

Overall, though, I love the Polestar. It’s been great not to have to fill up at the gas station. In terms of electricity, our home uses wind power energy. We pay a little extra to have our utility company purchase wind energy for our allotted use. Here in New England, wind energy is only slightly more expensive than normal electricity.

Now, my husband has been using my car to run his errands. It’s more energy-efficient and my car is fun to drive. And the kicker? My car is faster than his Porche!

p.s. Related posts:

Environmental Nonfiction Picture Books That Call Kids to Action

Environmental-Themed Picture Books

10 Environmental Picture Books

Environmental Crisis and Birth of Audubon Society

Physics of Circuits and Electricity for Kids

Five Products That Will Make Your Home More Environmentally Friendly

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My books:

Food for the Future: Sustainable Farms Around the World

• Junior Library Guild Gold selection
• Selected as one of 100 Outstanding Picture Books of 2023 by dPICTUS and featured at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair
• Starred review from School Library Journal
• Chicago Library’s Best of the Best
• Imagination Soup’s 35 Best Nonfiction Books of 2023 for Kids

 Amazon / Barefoot Books / Signed or Inscribed by Me

Amazon / Scholastic / Signed or Inscribed by Me