Give Polestar its due; at least it has a realistic world view of the landscape it’s entering into.
The Volvo offshoot is setting up shop in China next year — in a semi-rural valley in Chengdu — with plans to build its first stand-alone production model.
We’ve seen the architect’s renderings of the proposed factory ... and the images even include smog. Now that’s a lifelike representation.
The all-electric side project has big plans to revolutionise the sporty EV with a Scandi-Chinese take on Tesla.
This sounds like a cool idea. Or at least a clean idea. Perhaps that’s why the company hasn’t shied away from including a murky skyline: the cars are part of the solution, not the problem.
The Polestar Production Centre is in China in the first place because that country is forecast to take a dramatic turn in EV uptake over the next four or five years. It is expected there will be around a million EVs produced in China by 2020.
Not all of them will stay there, of course, but alt-energy cars will have plenty of good PR. The Government will make it so.
We’re looking forward to photos from the, say, fifth-year celebrations of Polestar’s foundation in the country, showing its streamlined factory bathed in bright, clear sunshine.
Off-road ejector seat to bring slapstick to safety
You’ve possibly heard about protective hoops that some sports cabrios use to avoid head-squishing at speed in the event of a roll-over.
Using a small pyrotechnic charge, the hoops spring up — and, theoretically, over — the occupants if the car’s safety system detects its wheels are where the roof should be.
The Ford Motor Company has now taken one step further. Well, in patent form. As if cribbing from James Bond-creator Ian Fleming himself, the FoMoCo is seriously looking into designing an ejector seat for its big F150 truck.
The ejector seat design’s application would be best suited to hardcore off-roading, says the manufacturer.
The idea is that sensors onboard can calculate when the vehicle is beginning to roll either laterally or longitudinally, and eject occupants to safety.
Sensors monitor the vehicle’s topographical surroundings and will make an executive decision on whether ejecting occupants away from the truck is likely to do them more harm than have them remain inside.
Should the system come to fruition, it would up the numbers attending hardcore off-road events. The idea of an F150 depositing its driver at the side of a track is something that would attract the crowds.
Honda’s ridiculously good-looking electric cafe racer
We’re huge fans of cafe racers here at The Good Oil.
Their pared down looks, no-comfort demeanour, and the culture of the world-famous Ace Cafe; it’s much the acceptable side of the two-wheeled coin for us.
A growing part of motorcyclist murmuring these days, though, is the advent of the electric bike.
The bikes have been around for years, of course, getting better and better all the time (just like their four-wheeled brethren, really).
And dispensing with all the traditional oily bits means designers can go a bit crazy with the concept stuff.
If it results in machines as gorgeous to behold as the Honda Model Electric Cafe Racer 1, then we’d like more. It’s just a concept (designed by Pablo Baranoff Dorn and Alex Guliyants), but we can only imagine a production e-bike that looked like this would be a sales winner.
A futuristic powertrain mixed with the sharp-edged style of a classic Honda CB650? Yes, please.