Featured What the Prime could be?

Every car is a compromise on the part of a manufacturer and of the buyer. A Prime is one price point, a Tesla another, a Porsche another, a Polestar another. And each compromises one or some things in pursuit of others.

Some could buy any, but choose to make a compromise. Some don't but would be compromising utility, rechargablity, service network, parts network, availability, etc. buying the Polestar. And with the average selling price of $37 and loan terms stretched, a $155 car seems a very niche product.

Don't be distracted by the shiny object.

 

Cheap, fast, good. Pick any two.

 

yea . . . . Poll Star . . . . sounds like a high paid porno movie actress.
Volvo after all IS owned by the Chinese company Geeley . . . maybe something got forgotten in the translation.

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It's not cheap, so must be good and fast Also it's pretty. Pole Star okay name. Subaru is a constellation, Pole Star is Polaris, presumably, which guides and helps navigate (???). Yes, Chinese Volvo is a bit hard to imagine. I have been a Volvo driver for about 20 years before the Prius, but they were all Swedish. My newest one was a 1998, the year before the sale to Ford. My others were old school rear wheel drive "red engine" cars, which I really like, even still. Prius blows Volvo away, though in pretty much every way except possibly safety. Cost of ownership on Volvo is not so good, but they are reliable and simple unpretentious (the ones I owned, anyway) work horses that provide great heat in the winter and absolutely suck at AC in the summer. I pretty much gave up trying to keep an AC in good repair about half way into my Volvo experience.

 

My cars were 1991 (240 which died by allowing my wife and kids to walk away unharmed from being broad sided), 1993 (2 940 wagons. 1 was totaled at over 250K miles by being rear ended and the second I got as replacement I sold earlier this year for $1K and it ran and drove like new with 200K miles on it) and 1998 S70 (the only FWD of the bunch, which I bought new in 1998 and it died at around 200K after having taught my older son to drive a manual transmission and also being his first car). The newer FWD cars were more refined and had great engines (straight 5 cylinder), but lacked that longevity that old "red block" (RWD) cars had. After 20 years and 200K miles the S70 started dropping parts so as to become not economical to keep running. So we junked it in 2018. The RWD cars are so simple and solid that they can be made to run forever with little effort. Formerly mine, 1993 940 wagon is serving its new owner as a dog-walking business mobile. You can put a lot in a 940 wagon with folded rear seats, believe me. I still see it driving through where I live sometimes.

 

I’ve been eyeing the XC70 as a replacement for our Outback. Never owned a Volvo before but I have rented them a few times; never sat in a better auto seat.

 

Test drove a 2004 S40, and "this is the most comfortable seat" was my first impression.

 

I think we’re going to wind up as a 3-car household. A wagon (XC70?) for long-haul, the Prius we have now, and a little EV hatchback as our “farm truck” grocery getter. Secondhand Leaf or Spark are both looking good.

I’m a rabid Subaru fan and loved our Outback dearly, but those morphed out of wagonhood into SUV territory 10 years ago and they aren’t coming back. I’d sign my life away for a Levorg, but there are no plans to bring them to the USA.

 

I would stay away from modern Volvos. Their AWD systems were problematic when they first came out, not sure what they are like now, but my faith in Volvo only applies to old school Swedish Bricks. New-fangled stuff is suspect IMO. My 20 year experience with S70 was okay, but now that I own a Toyota I can see that Volvo was much more expensive to run. In their early days they were some of the safest cars on the road, but today they are no different in that respect than many others (safety standards have caught up to early Volvo voluntary efforts). At this point I would stay with Toyota.

That was another thing with the Volvos. Comfortable seats. They really got that down way early on when the car seats were really intended as torture devices. Volvo seats are amazing, even in the cars from the 70's and 80's. Strangely enough, even though the seats were very similar in design, I preferred the 240 and 940 (1991 and 1993) seats to the seats in the S70 (1998). Still, every Volvo I have ever sat in had amazing seats.

 

@VFerdman I appreciate the warning, and I’ve heard similar from others. I’m not clear on what’s on the menu for later XC70s. I know they were discontinued at the end of 2016, there are several engines available, and I know some are FWD and some are AWD. My Subarus taught me that AWD was nice, but also that it isn’t really necessary for me.

One pro-Volvo point in my mind is that there is an independent expert 3 miles from my home. The guy took over from his dad and has a stellar reputation around town.

 

Huh, had no idea you could get a Volvo at Costco. I thought it was all law degrees and knee replacement surgeries.

Either way that shape does nothing for me. Same flaw as the modern Outback: not wagon enough.

 

I know her, nice girl.

 

I'm sure we've all donated to Charity at some point.

 

That's her name, do you know her too?