2020 Volvo V60 T8 Polestar Engineered: Sing the wagon electric

[MUSIC] pollster might be hard at work tucked away in Sweden developing the first two vehicles under its own specific brand name, but the former. Doing for fun on the side while spending most of its energy building most its own cars. Thankfully I'm here to tell you that's not the case whatsoever, the new V60 Polestar is a fully baked performance plug in hybrid that frankly brews so hard [MUSIC] It's got a nice flat roof up top which translates to plenty of headroom for passengers in both roads. And since that roof stays flat all the way across to the cargo area, you end up with it not too bad 23.2 cubic feet of cargo space. [BLANK_AUDIO] It's not hard to tell to B60 Pollstar apart from it's more pedestrian siblings. In addition to the white pollstar emblems on the grill and lift gate, there's a set of gold brake calipers hiding behind unique 19 inch wheels, as well as the extra flap on the front fender that hides the charging port for the lithium ion battery. There's no chrome to be seen either with gloss black elements replacing them for a more sinister Get up. While I do love the cars looks inside now it's not entirely perfect For example, there's a surprisingly limited amount of storage in the V 60. Pollstar with a barely there cubby under the armrest indoor panels that have a hard time fitting even a single standard water bottle. There's also a surprisingly pronounced hump between the two rear seats, which can make fitting three adults in the back a little tricky. The TA in the V 60 Pollstar his name means the car packs a potent, albeit complicated power train. Let's start with the engine. It's a two liter in line for gas engine that supports both a turbo charger and a supercharger. Now that needs to a two motor hybrid system to create a nice meeting that output a 415 horsepower and 494 pounds of torque. Now that's sent to all four wheels through an eight speed automatic transmission. [MUSIC] Now, if you couldn't tell from the numbers, the V sixty pole star positively scoots, and I'm able to tell where that boom is coming from at all times, whether it's electric or gas propulsion. Thanks to the right side of the gauge cluster, which permanently displays a kind of little power meter there. The power comes on quick thanks to the electric motors instant on torque, but delivery can feel a little strange as it hops between electric and gas propulsion. As for the ride, it's definitely on the stiffer side but that's the expected given its Pollstar performance provenance. There is some adjustability to the suspension, but instead of just tapping a button on the screen like you would on most cars, you have to flip open the hood here where you're met with a set of manually adjustable Olins dampers accompanied by a cute little chart that. Well if you're not, an automotive engineer will. Probably confuse the hell out of you. There is some softness to be had, yes. But what point of a Polestar car is for performance and fun and throwing a soft car around on back roads is not exactly fun. [MUSIC] The electric side of the equation is perhaps the most intriguing part of the car for me. The battery is good for an EPA estimated 22 miles range on its own, a number that I was able to hit easily when reserving the electrons for urban driving. The battery will take about two hours to charge on a level two charger but if you're on the move, you can select the cars charge mode, which will fill up the battery while driving for later use. Swap to hold mode and it will save that juice until you're ready to use it. If you don't have a dedicated charger at home, well, this can ensure that you get the most out of that lithium ion pack. The EPA estimates that the V60, Pollstar will achieve a combined fuel economy of 30 miles per gallon with the gas engine alone but I was seeing highway figures closer to 28 is I charged battery. [MUSIC] [SOUND] Aside from the mode switches specific to the plugin hybrid, the V-60 Polestar wears the same infotainment tech as every other Volvo wagon. Smack dab in the middle of the dashboard here is a 9 inch portrait touchscreen running the automaker's Sensus Connect infotainment system. It is a mighty capable one, with things like Spotify integration, Apple Car Play and Android Auto. That said since this can get pretty confusing if you want to access most of the features of the car you take a left or right swipe from the home screen where you're just met with this massive tiles that if you have no idea where you're trying to get to will take some getting used to. Probably best to let the passenger take care of that one while you're on the road. And then there's the issue of lag. New upcoming sense of systems will work this out but for now the V60 system is still pretty slow taking about 30 seconds or so to fully boot up when you start the car for the first time in a given day. Now it's nice because it does remember things like your seat heat settings so you want exactly freeze to death while you're waiting for the touchscreen actually respond to your inputs. There are two USB ports under the little center armrest here but out back all you get is a 12 volt port and that's it. No USB, shame. Information also comes to you from the 12 inch gauge display that shows not only speed and power delivery but a small map in the middle for navigation purposes. Using the buttons on the steering wheel, you can change music inputs and fiddle with other settings without looking at the main screen, which is a nice touch. Even though it's a performance car, it's still a Volvo. So there's a boatload of standard safety in here like automatic braking, blind spot monitoring and lane departure warning. The V60 Pollstar also comes with pilot assist a hands on system that combines adaptive cruise control and lane keep assist to keep the car centered in its lane on the highway. It's nice and smooth, but it's also hard to use because frankly, this car is just so fun to drive that relinquishing control doesn't come easy. [MUSIC] The 2020 Volvo V60 Pull Star engineered is certainly a special car and it's price reflex at. Why you might be able to get a Base View 60 for about 41 grand, this pull start engineered Mallerin's in it's 67,300 to start. Throwing my testers $645 metallic paint job and the 995 mandatory destination charging well, all of a sudden you're staring down a window sticker just shy of $69,000. But if you want to have your electric cake and eat it to the V 60 pollster is a hard purchase to pass up. It's attractive and blast to drive, and on top of that the plugin hybrid power train lets you go on battery alone for pretty significant stretches of time. It is one mean, green, Swedish machine. [MUSIC]