[Auto] Charging north: Chasing the Pole Star in the Polestar 2

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"This isn’t quite the end of the earth – but you can see it from here,” quips one of our hosts. Looking north from our windswept perch across the heaving seas, I think he might be right. We’re closer to the Arctic Circle than we are to London, but our passports are safely at home because we’re still in the UK. Just. 

Rewind 24 hours and Autocar staff photographer Max Edleston and I meet at Port Edgar, a smart marina just outside Edinburgh, with a plan to drive north until the blacktop stops. Our car for the journey is a fully electric Polestar 2, whose namesake celestial body – variously known as the Pole Star, Polaris or the North Star – will guide us there, hanging as it does directly above the North Pole.

We’re in the entry-level 2, which means 228bhp, front-wheel drive and a claimed range of 297 miles. Limited to 100mph, it’s a pragmatic spec for a relatively pragmatic car. As such, the 2 isn’t overburdened with modes and I’ve already found ‘mine’ – the middle choices for regen (intended to mimic engine braking) and for steering (it’s overly light or overly springy otherwise), with step-off creep switched on.

Queensferry Crossing’s cables gleam white in the sunshine as we silently span the Firth of Forth, the Polestar’s easy-going character immediately apparent. There is a slight bobbing over the M90’s smaller ripples as we press through Fife, otherwise it’s how exactly motorway driving in an electric car should be: clean and serene.

If we’d been heading for John O’Groats, we’d keep our course at Perth, but we have bigger plans. We veer coastwards past Dundee and on to Aberdeen, the gateway to Britain’s most distant outpost: the 100-island archipelago of Shetland. 

We’re hoping to drive the length of Shetland and back without needing a charge, so after an untaxing cruise we pause at Porsche Centre Aberdeen to use its public DC rapid charger, meaning the battery is at 99% as we turn into the NorthLink Ferries terminal. (There are AC fast chargers at the port, but you can’t charge on board – the logic being that using the ferry’s four diesel engines as generators for EVs would be self-defeating.)

We soon board the imposing, 125-metre MV Hrossey. This route is vital to industry, commerce and leisure alike and the ship can take 600 people and 140 cars. The Polestar installed on the lower of two vehicle decks and ourselves in a pair of compact but impeccably equipped cabins, we’re under way by the time we sit for dinner. 

In keeping with every Scottish island ferry I’ve been on, there’s a noticeably cheerful atmosphere on board. Something to do with all being in the same boat, I suppose. 

A postprandial recce to the deserted top deck has me peering into the now pitch-black sky. Jupiter blazes to the south-east, but cloud scotches the view north. A stargazing app confirms the Pole Star’s location, though, reassuringly plumb between Hrossey’s funnels. 

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/features/charging-north-chasing-pole-star-polestar-2