Automobile USA – June 2019

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37

by ROBERT

CUMBERFORD

By Design

1

Front 3/4 View

A SLIGHT INDENTATION

above each wheel opening, as on previous

Volvo concept cars, provides an “eyebrow”

effect without trim pieces, thus at no cost.

IT’S ALMOST A

fastback, but not quite.

The little break in the

profile is quite charming

and does no harm to

smooth airflow.

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2

THERE IS A substantial

bulge around the rear

wheels ...

... and the body side

indentation ahead of

it shows clearly by

the door cut.

YES, IT’S AN ELECTRIC CAR.

NO, IT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE IT.

I HAVE NO absolute ideas about how

electric cars should look. Apparently,

no one working in car design today

has any more certainty than I do.

But I can tell you that this Polestar

2, pleasant as it is in conventional

terms, is far from any Platonic ideal

of an electric car. Tesla is the world

standard for electric vehicles at

present, but so far all its products—

like the Polestar 2—just resemble very

nice gasoline or diesel cars. Tesla’s

initial Model S had a disgraceful

black oval on the front to suggest

a radiator grille. That was finally

expunged in a face-lift, and successive

designs such as the Model 3 never

suffered the indignity of false frontal

air intake grilles, as Polestar does.

This year’s Geneva Motor Show was

full of various electrics that either

resembled Italian supercars or were

Italian supercars—but with electric

propulsion. And of course there

were multiple electrified versions of

standard cars. Volkswagen and many

others offer battery-laden electric

standard sedans, hatchbacks, or

SUVs that don’t reveal their method

of energy consumption visually until

you’re close enough to read their

badges. I believe that’s just wrong.

That’s not a new attitude for

me. I attended an auction of some

of Bill Harrah’s collection 30-some

years ago and was impressed by an

air-cooled 1932 Franklin V-12. It had

a huge, tall grille adequate for any

water-cooled V-12 but no radiator

behind it. Given that from the early

years of the century until the 1920s

there had been distinctive snub-nosed

fronts on Franklins, I thought

it unfortunate it was deemed

necessary to have such a derivative,

artificial aesthetic. So it’s sad this

handsome Volvo-like sedan also

has a derivative, artificial aesthetic.

It’s quite a good-looking object, but

it does not in any way correspond

to what I want to see for a car

that has limited energy capacity

and must be recharged over a

fairly long period. You can top up

a liquid-fuel car in only about five

minutes, a realistic self-serve time.

But the very best current electrics

take longer—much longer—to

resupply with propulsive energy. So

they really should be as perfectly

optimized for low drag as modern

airliners, which no longer have

distinctive vertical tail profiles

as marks of identity. Efficiency

trumped styling.

With this and almost all other

electric cars I’ve seen, disguising

the difference between them and

a “real” car seems to have been

the paramount styling concern.

It shouldn’t be. I’m very much

in favor of a vehicle’s shape and

detailing declaring in clear terms

its purpose and function. Polestar

2’s shape does tell you it’s safe and

comfortable, that it’s not meant to

go very fast or attract unwanted

attention, which is all to the good.

But it doesn’t in any way tell us it

manifests a different and better

method of individual transport

or that it’s ecologically clean and

won’t gas you in city canyons. And

that’s too bad. AM