This article is a pretty low effort post for Ars. Please do better.
All of the fear mongering around Chinese data collection now can equally be applied by the rest of the world to American vehicles. Do I want to drive a Tesla if I think that Musk can gather whatever data he wants, or shut my car down remotely if he has another ketamine-fuelled tantrum? How about the long-promised, paid for and never delivered FSD that so many people are hanging out for? Orders that are paid in full that have never been fulfilled even years later, and now he says "Oh, sorry, that hardware I promised could do FSD, well, nah, it actually can't – if you want FSD I'll give you a discount on a new Tesla though". Like seriously?
Here in Australia, we get a lot of the new Chinese brands. There is the BYD Atto 1, that has a driveaway price of $25,000 AUD, including GST, which is roughly $15,500 USD once you take off 10% for GST and then factor in the exchange rate. There's all of the Geely brands – including Zeekr, Polestar and Lotus. MG, GWM, Chery. BYD and Denza. Take your pick. It's a brave new world out there and the USA is no longer the king of the hill.
I recently purchased a Polestar 2, having driven various versions of the Audi S3 for the past 10+ years, and the Polestar is an excellent vehicle – a true driver's EV.
It combines some of the best minimal and classy European design with cutting-edge Chinese technology, and the whole package is very compelling.
The Long Range, Dual Motor variant has an 82kW/h battery that delivers 590km range, and with over 300kW to the wheels, it can get all 2,100kgs of vehicle and batteries to do the 0-100 sprint in around 4.5 seconds. The Bowers and Wilkins stereo possibly sounds better than my hifi system at home, the leather seats are comfy and the panoramic sunroof is just the icing on the cake.
