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content/blog/wk10day4.md

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 title: "Week 10, Thursday: Polestars Testdrive"
 date: 2024-10-03T21:55:00+02:00
-draft: true
 ---
 
-{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/todo.png" alt="Credit: " >}}
+{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/aletto.png" alt="Credit: Aletto, YouTube" >}}
+
+We've had a Tesla Model S (with black nosecone) since 2015, and we still benefit from free charging
+for life. We're a good twelve years after the introduction of Model S, and it's still quite tricky
+to find an electric car that rivals the driving experience of Tesla. But, we are in the market,
+eventually, for a new car and we'd like to come prepared with a set of alternative choices. I'm not
+sure I'll want to replace this car with another Tesla.
+
+We booked a driving tour of one hour with the [[Polestar](https://polestar.com/)] 3 (a fullsized
+crossover SUV much like the Volvo XC90) and also the Polestar 4 (a compacter crossover SUV). It's
+fun to realize that Volvo and Polestar are owned by chinese megacorp _Geely_, which is a customer
+of IPng! But, it could be fun to test drive and possibly become a customer of _Geely_ as well? Let's
+find out!
+
+Since Tim and I went to bed a few bottles in and at 03:30 yesterday, the waking up was also a bit of
+a just-in-time job. Our appointment is at 11:45 and at around 11:00 we both emerge out of our warm
+beds, ready for the morning ritual. The game plan is that Marina and I pick up the car, then we
+drive to our house to see if it even fits in the garage (should be, both Polestars are smaller than
+the Model S), and then we take a good drive with the three of us.
+
+Our first car is the Polestar 4, with 2x200kW motor and a 100kWh batterypack. It has lots of the
+options enabled, and it's a wonderful drive. The power is there, the entertainment screen is
+horizontal in this car (like newer Tesla models), but it has Apple Carplay, which I am a huge fan
+of. Driving experience is great, it keeps lane, follows cars, has adaptive cruise control, and a
+really stunning internal trim with light effects, charging mat, USB C (60W PD), and even the rear
+seats are adjustable. It's very spatious inside, the funk is laughably small, and the rear trunk is
+pretty good, including a clever floor panel that can fold up and fold down into a lower position.
+
+After an hour or so, we deliver the Polestar 4, and swap it for a Polestar 3, which is a slightly
+bigger, more premium car. They both were announced in different years, but ended up being on the
+market at the same time, with deliveries starting in Q2'2024. The Polestar 3 has a few really nice
+benefits: a Bowers & Wilkins pimped out stereo with 25 (yes, twenty-five!) speakers and a subwoofer,
+a vertical entertainment screen, no interior lighting, missing screen in the back, no adjustable
+seats, but a superior driving experience and 2x180kW motors with a 110kW battery, so clearly a
+larger range (630km on paper). No apple carplay! It's just a bit weird, I feel, to have a premium
+car which has less features than its smaller and cheaper sibling. I would've honestly expected _all_
+of those cool things from the Polestar 4 to be available. But it drives like a boss, it's really
+really smooth but also punchy despite being the size (and weight) of a Model X.
+
+One of the nice things about this three-way review is that all of us emphasize different parts of
+the car. Tim remarks that we really should be car reviewers as we feel like we do a very thorough
+job judging build quality, driving style and experience, driving assist features, and overall
+interior features. We gathered pics of both cars [[here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9knCTHbhWs)].
+
+{{< image src="/img/arc.png" width="9em" float="left" alt="story arc" >}}
+
+After the testdrive, at 15:00 we do the last task in the story arc of Tim's visit. We meticulously
+fiddle with all the buttons and switches and light panels, and make the finer details of the cockpit
+work. We now have stall warning, master warning, oil pressure and engine fire alarms, and so on all
+working. As a finishing touch, the engine startup mechanics, with both mags, all avionics and fuel
+pump switches, radios and navigation computer, all work now in the Cessna 172, Cessna 152 (well, no
+navigation here) and Diamon DA40NG. I could not be more pleased as we take a trip from Eindhoven
+airport EHEH to Breda airport EHSE, navigating, ATC tower and all, over Gilze Rijen EHGR. We manage
+to land the plane and refuel it.
+
+I myself take the same DA40 out for a spin from D&uuml;bendorf military airport LSMD to a very
+popular Birrfeld LSZF, which I've flown the circuit of in real life, in one of the very few actual
+airplane experiences. Tim did me a solid and recorded the flight on his GPS flight recorder. Cool
+fact: that Sky Demon has a mode in which it can slurp in GPS info from the _flightsim_ rather than
+the GPS receiver, so you can use it in such a sim in much the same way as you can in real life. That
+was super fun and he took some screenshots as I was flying perfectly straight in the circuit,
+albeit bouncing up and down vertically quite a bit, including the landing as I know not what I do.
+See below the Sky Demon flight plan, the actual path (yellow), and the circuit I flew in this 21
+minute flight. Not gonna lie, it was a great reward after such an intense struggle to get this thing
+to finally work. Thank you Tim!!
+
+While high on life, it was time to ground ourselves by introducing a huge amount of cheese fondue
+into our bodies. Marina had prepared the table with tableware, bread, pine apple, sour onions and
+little pickles, and drinks. She knows that once I start making the fondue, that there is a point of
+no return: it will be created, carried to the table, and has to immediately be consumed by
+vigorously stirring the pot, otherwise we may get in trouble. However, the so called
+_Schwiegemutter_ (English: mother in law), the cakey cheese that creates a super-salty super-tasty
+fondue trophy.
+
+If your fondue worked out, and people stirred vigorously _enough_, it comes out in once piece. Which
+it does. Because we are professional fondue-eaters. We all eat a little piece of the mother in law,
+but to spare our kidneys, we don't eat the whole thing. 
+
+After dinner, we watch some news on TV, finish the bottle of red wine from yesterday, and retire for
+an evening of two of our most favorite things: Trappiste beer and LEGOs! My buddy Sandra has made
+the NASA space shuttle and loaned it to me, so we spend a few hours making the hubble space
+telescope, and a good start on the under carriage of the shuttle Discovery. As we do this, Tim and I
+swap stories of our favorite YouTube channels. It turns out, we have many of them in common,
+possibly because we're somehow related, I don't know for sure, but I would not be surprised.
+
+We find a nice checkpoint on the shuttle undercarriage and call it a night at 01:00.
 
 ## Pictures of the Day
 
 {{< gallery-category >}}
-  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-03/IMG_1759.JPG" caption="" >}}
-  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-03/IMG_1777.JPG" caption="" >}}
-  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-03/IMG_1790.JPG" caption="" >}}
-  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-03/IMG_1799.JPG" caption="" >}}
-  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-03/IMG_1800.JPG" caption="" >}}
-  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-03/IMG_1802.JPG" caption="" >}}
-  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-04/IMG_1803.JPG" caption="" >}}
-  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-04/IMG_1804.JPG" caption="" >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-03/IMG_1759.JPG" caption="Marina and I are in the Polestar 4, a sporty car and fun to drive." >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-03/IMG_1777.JPG" caption="Tim was also with us in the Polestar 4, sorry you couldn't drive, buddy!" >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-03/IMG_1790.JPG" caption="The Polestar 3 is a nice competition for Model X. Chinese, not South African." >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-03/IMG_1799.JPG" caption="Tim is pointing at a point of interest in our simulator: Diamond DA40NG" >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-04/lsmd-lszf.png" caption="My flight plan from Dubendorf to Birrfeld in Switzerland" >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-04/lszf.png" caption="I'm quite proud of how well I managed to follow the circuit. Not visible here: how messy my altitude was." >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-03/IMG_1800.JPG" caption="The Schwiegemutter, the last bit of caked cheese at the bottom of the pot. A+ would eat again." >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-03/IMG_1802.JPG" caption="To finish the evening, we enjoy a set of belgian trappiste beers from 2018" >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-04/IMG_1803.JPG" caption="We finish Sandra's hubble space telescope and it's really cool!" >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-04/IMG_1804.JPG" caption="We also construct the under carriage of this Space Shuttle Discovery that Sandra loaned me. Such a cool build!" >}}
 {{< /gallery-category >}}
 
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