The big test: EV crossovers

Two newcomer EV brands. Two takes on the family crossover. But is Swedish cool better than Korea's Gangnam style?

- OLLIE KEW

POLESTAR 2 LONG RANGE £42,900/£51,700 as tested

GENESIS GV60 SPORT PLUS £65,405/£71,445 as tested

Ever feel like you're getting old? Look, two marques that didn't exist here three years ago. They grow up so fast... Sure, Polestar was Volvo's racing team and go-faster division before its Doctor Whovian electric regeneration, and Californian dentists had access to a Genesis, but in the UK these are brand new, um, brands.

The new GV60 doesn't look familiar - in fact, to several confused passers-by this morning, it apparently looks like a little Bentley. But behind the copycat winged badge, the Genesis is a car you've met before.

Being an offshoot from the Hyundai mothership, the GV60 is supposedly the posh, premium, Taste the Difference version of the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6. Same battery, same motors, and same high voltage charging gubbins that allow the GV60 to offload its own juice to power up a nearby appliance. Or an EV that's stranded, if you're feeling philanthropic. Strangely, not a feature offered by any electric Audi or BMW.

Meanwhile, the Polestar is also a fan of recycling. It borrows a base from the Volvo XC40. I'm not sure that matters, though. Aspirational Audi buyers have never cared their A3 shares a chassis and powerplants with Skoda's cheaper, more spacious Octavia. If anything, EVs force premium car designers to work harder to justify existing at all.

To add some needles, we've mix and matched the specs. Mostly, you'll have seen the Polestar 2 with Performance Pack in the pages of this magazine - we also ran one as a long-termer. The headline act of Polestar's range, it boasts 476bhp through two motors, 20-way manually adjustable suspension you'll never touch, and dubious coppery detailing.