HEAD TO HEAD LUXURY ELECTRIC SUVS

Polestar's new 3 SUV meets BMW's facelifted (and now less controversial) iX. Who builds the best posh electric SUV?

- JASON BARLOW

It's called a Life Cycle Impulse. Facelift, in old money. The iX has been trolled mercilessly by the online commentariat but that hasn't stopped BMW from shifting more than 130,000 units since it arrived in late 2021. Healthy business for such a polarising machine, in a global car market that has collectively taken fright at upmarket EVs.

Here goes, then: I like the iX, and always have. The 'impulse' gets new air inlets instead of the challenging DRLs and they've rearranged the panels on the nose. The elongated BMW double kidney grille now comes with the option of the 'iconic glow' illumination. Yep, you have to pay extra to emphasise it. New colours and wheel combinations definitely help, and the iX remains the category buster that it's always been. An EV SUV that doesn't go off-road with an interior that's a million miles away from utilitarian.

Whatever it is - or isn't - the Polestar 3 is having some of it. It's similarly sized to the BMW, which is to say bigger even than images on a page can convey. Polestar's travails have been well covered, the removal of boss Thomas Ingenlath and the departure of design lead Max Missoni undermining its alt-Nordic approach to, well, everything. Hopefully the foundations are sufficiently resolute to see the brand ride out the financial wobbles and maintain the necessary headroom as the Chinese EV invasion gathers momentum. Sales in the UK are up 203 per cent year on year so far.