Pete F drives a Polestar 2 Long Range Single Motor 79kWh 2022.

This is Pete’s second electric car, he’s owned the Polestar 2 from new and drives 10,000-15,000 miles annually. The current mileage of the car is between 90,000-100,000 miles and he achieves 250 miles from a full charge.

Why did you choose the Polestar 2?

Liked the look of the car, had a decent range (needed now more than ever with the stupid price of public charging) and was a decent price on the company Salary Sacrifice Scheme.

Positives – List 3 or more reasons why you love this electric car

• I think it’s one of the best looking electric cars around
• acceleration even on the Single Motor is superb
• extremely comfortable to sit in and to drive.

Negatives – List 3 or more things that you really don’t like about this electric car

• The App for the digital key and connectivity is sub par for a car in this price bracket and is temperamental
• the sound system isn’t very good. The fader consists of being able to turn the front or back speakers off!
• as with most modern cars, there is no spare tyre.

Have you experienced any faults with the car? If so, what have they been?

Occasional lack of connectivity which usually sorts itself out after being left for half a day. The digital key can be temperamental too although I’ve not been left stranded with it, it just takes some coaxing sometimes.

What are the standout technological features of the car?

Mine has the Pilot Lite pack on it so I get Adaptive Cruise Control, Speed Limiter, Collision avoidance, Cross Traffic Alert with Brake Support & all-round cameras which provide a 360 degree view of the car. Although it’s a bit weird when you have things at the side of the car which then appear stretched and the back camera is constantly dirty!

Surprise us! Tell us something people wouldn’t readily know about this electric car

Quite a bit of storage space in the frunk and under the boot ‘bottom’ which lifts up. It has auto-intervention rear braking which is useful if some bozo decides to walk behind you while you’re reversing. It is however, a little overzealous and if it detects a tree branch or one of those strips that McDonalds put in their car parks two feet away from the end of the bay (to stop you reversing your rear wheels over it) it will slam and I mean SLAM the brakes on to the point where you think you’ve actually hit something.

What electric car(s) are you interested in next and why?

I’m really not sure. Maybe another Polestar but this time the Dual Motor with Plus pack, a Volvo XC40 Long Range or (I can’t believe I’m saying it) a Tesla Model Y. These are the only cars that I can see are in my price range with a decent range.

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Home charging unit – outline both positive & negative elements

My home charging unit is an Ohme Pro which was installed by Octopus Energy to allow me to use Intelligent Octopus. I wish I’d spent an extra £100 and gone for the 8m cable rather than the 5m. The charger has a fabulous app and I initially had it installed it to allow me to use Intelligent Octopus but this ended up costing more as we use a lot of electricity during the day so I switched to Agile Octopus.

This gives half-hourly prices which change throughout the day and night. The charger is able to read the electricity rates and you can set price caps so it won’t charge over a certain price. You can set it so that a connection has to be authorised (preventing random people connecting up and nicking your ‘leccy). The only thing I don’t like about it is the very flimsy charge plug holder.

Electricity supplier & tariff – outline both positive & negative elements 

Currently on the Agile Tariff from Octopus Energy. This tariff gives half hourly pricing throughout the day and night. For example, for me today 24/5/23 the lowest price will be 12.6p/kWh + VAT and the highest will be 33.02p/kWh + VAT.

If I set my charger to charge at no more than 14p/kWh + VAT the charger app tells me the car will charge between 01:00 – 04:00 and 12:30 – 16:00 tomorrow. I really can’t fault Octopus. Their customer service has been outstanding and their prices have been the lowest (as far as I can see) of any of the suppliers.

Octopus do other EV tariffs such as Intelligent Octopus (6 hours cheap overnight) or Octopus Go (4 hours cheap overnight) this is great but, obviously, the daytime units are higher to make up for the low overnight costs and, for me, it works out cheaper on Agile. If you use little electricity during the day it’s probably worth looking at one of these two tariffs.

What public charging networks would you recommend to others and why?

My go to public chargers were InstaVolt as, in my experience, they are one of the most reliable. However, they absolutely take the mickey with their pricing (79p/kWh) so I try other networks first.

bp pulse – decent prices (I subscribe) but chargers are constantly out of service so my subscription will lapse later this year.

GeniePoint – recently dropped prices from an eye-watering 98p/kWh to 79p/kWh and slightly lower if you’re charging off-peak hours. Everytime I’ve tried to use one of these chargers I’ve had issues so I avoid them now.

GRIDSERVE – always have charged well when on the motorways. The only problem I’ve had was one on a go-slow charging rate at 24kWh. I stopped the session, restarted and got the full 50kWh treatment 🙂

Pod Point – usually great reliable chargers but lots tend to be 7kW chargers. Prices reasonable on both slow and fast chargers.

Mer – I have the app but yet to find one available to connect up to.

Please itemise where you’re saving money (or not) owning & running an electric car

I don’t know at the moment. Road Tax is about to be retrospectively applied to EVs. All I can say is we’re doing the equivalent of about 130 mpg, I think. Obviously, the car is expensive at £570 approx. per month but that’s with insurance, tyres, road tax, maintenance, etc included.