Listen and learn

New audio speaker tech is set to make waves in luxury EVs. Steve Cropley lends an ear

- Steve Cropley

I'm sitting in a white Polestar 2 prototype, listening to the Dave Brubeck Quartet perform a piece called Unsquare Dance. I've played it hundreds of times before, because I happen to like Brubeck's brand of none-too-intellectual jazz and I never tire of this track's weirdly refreshing 7/4 time signature.

Every time I've played it before, I've heard a performance recorded 60 years ago before a live audience somewhere in the US. But today is different: today I'm in the audience. With the help of a revolutionary, British-made premium-spec car audio system, I can actually hear Brubeck's fingers on the keyboard, along with the sizzles and squeaks of other players operating their instruments. I'd have sworn I knew this track intimately, but I'm hearing its ultimate detail for the first time.

Beside me in the Polestar's cabin is Ian Hubbard, chief commercial officer of Warwick Acoustics (WA), the Midlands-based technology company working at top speed to bring this revolution to the premium car market. Hubbard has been explaining that WA's advances are based around a range of small, deceptively simple, biscuit-shaped electrostatic speakers discreetly mounted in carefully chosen positions around the Polestar's cabin.