One of the perks of living in the hinterland of the North Rivers region of New South Wales is that you can quickly assess driving a car. Being stuck in city traffic doesn’t give you much insight beyond the obvious bleeding, nor does sitting on a 110 km / h highway for hours on end.

Of course, those are two important inputs, but there’s nothing quite like a winding road through rolling foothills to put a car to the test. This is what has made my Tesla Model 3 so fun to drive on a daily basis for the past two years, and for the first time, I have found another electric car in the same price range that matches it in terms of performance from conduct.

The Polestar brand started as a racing team before being bought by partner Volvo and parent company Geely and then relaunched as a performance-driven brand of electric vehicles, perhaps because Volvo didn’t had yet to find his strategic brain on his own transition. to electric vehicles would take place.

There is an advantage to this. The first is the development of a new electric transmission, which allows an automaker to rethink the way it approaches automotive design. Hyundai took advantage of this with its Ioniq series, starting with the recently released Ioniq 5, and its new thinking on interior space and the vehicle to be loaded.

Polestar did not take either of these routes with the release of its first fully electric car, the Polestar 2. (The Polestar 1 was a hybrid). The designers don’t seem to have given much thought to the possibilities of additional space or vehicle to load, but they have produced a great sedan that offers handling, acceleration and performance.

In the foothills it was a real pleasure to drive. And that really shouldn’t have been a surprise, given the company’s success as a touring car champion. But it was really impressive, and others who were lucky enough to drive the car had a similar opinion.

Granted, I was driving the long-range twin-engine variant of what Polestar describes as its “avant-garde quick-return” sedan, which is priced at $ 69,900. It has a 78 kWh battery, a range of over 400 km and can get you from 0 to 100 km / h in 4.7 smart seconds.

There are lower cost options, such as $ 59,900 for the Standard single range motor (64 kWh battery) and $ 64,900 for the long range single motor (78 kWh battery and range over 500 km). Both single-engine variants fall below the threshold of the $ 3,000 electric vehicle rebate offered in three states, as well as significant savings on stamp duty.

Another plus is the relative simplicity of the dashboard. There’s a big screen on one side and it was pretty straightforward to figure out how to use the radio, navigation, and keep an eye on the charge status and remaining distance. It was quite refreshing, although others’ perspectives ranged from approval to not so sure.

Another cool feature was the visualization presented for the inversion. Like so many modern cars, turning around and looking out the rear window does not give as full a view as it used to be in older models. That’s why we have backup cameras, and Polestar’s efforts to triangulate those cameras and provide a bird’s-eye view have been very helpful.

What surprised me, and frankly disappointed, was the interior layout. While many EV models have used new transmissions, flat floors, and smaller electric motors to create more space inside, Polestar has put little effort into this part.

Maybe they think their customers like to feel warm, and that may not be a problem at all for a lot of people. Design points depend on individual preferences.

But I couldn’t understand why so much room was taken up by the center compartment, and even the raised area in front of the rear seats. Electric vehicles are supposed to have flat floors and create a feeling of space! It seemed like a missed opportunity.

Still, there’s a lot to love about this car, and it’s no surprise to see it popular with orders and plenty of bookings for test drives. I would recommend making one.

And it will be interesting to see how the designers of Polestar treat the space with the release of the Polestar 3, which will be an electric SUV.