#PerformanceHybrid

Polestar is building the cars Volvo can’t rationalize for its core demographic — high-powered electrics not intended for the general populace. While the brand has tweaked its Swedish autos in the past, Geely’s acquisition of Volvo Cars has seen Polestar evolve into a standalone division with its own unique performance lineup. But its stables are currently empty, at least until Polestar 1 enters into production.

In the interim, the Volvo subsidiary will continue showing the 600-horsepower coupe off to whet the appetites of the global market. That includes the United States because, as of last month, you can preorder one for yourself for $2,500. But production won’t begin in China until next year, and Geely doesn’t want that factory to go to waste. So Polestar will likely trickle out information and multimedia relating to its first model for the entirety of 2018.

This week, we were treated to a video of it attacking a snowy rut during some extreme winter testing inside Sweden’s portion of the Arctic Circle. Interestingly, the car in the video is camouflaged. But we’ve already seen the 2-door sports hybrid uncovered at the Geneva Motor Show — and it just us, or does the Polestar 1 look a little bit like Lincoln persevered with the LS and eventually spawned a coupe variant?

Ford Motor Company, in a tremendously public product planning moment, revealed at the beginning of 2017 that the automaker would produce an F-150 Hybrid, Transit plug-in hybrid, and a Mustang Hybrid by 2020.

Then-CEO Mark Fields said at the time, “Ford is committed to being a leader in providing consumers with a broad range of electrified vehicles.” But now that Ford revealed plans for the 2020 Mustang Hybrid, the Blue Oval has a three-year gap in which to talk about a car that doesn’t yet exist.

How to talk about it now, three years prior to launch? Ford Canada is placing promoted ads on Twitter that are endlessly popping up in my feed.

The Mustang Hybrid is not shown. But the future earns a prominent mention.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

I was working for a crazy little company in Fremont, California in 1995. One day the boss-man pulled up in a shiny new Acura NSX. It was low. It was foreign. It was cool. Little did I know the bitchin’ Acura in the parking lot would upset the supercar apple cart.

Twenty-five years ago, Honda put the big-boys on notice with a fast, economical and reliable supercar. Yes, reliable and supercar can be used in the same sentence without irony when speaking of a first-generation NSX.

If you set the way-back machine to 1990, you’ll realize it was a different world. Supercars were rear-wheel drive, few made more than 300 horsepower, and a modern Volvo wagon would probably eat them alive on a track. By the time the NSX was euthanized in 2005, the competition had more than caught up and Honda decided its resources were best used elsewhere.

For 2017, Acura has resurrected the NSX name and applied it to an all-new mid-engine coupe, but can it fill the big shoes left by its predecessor?