Enlarge / The Cupra Born is a sporty alternative to the Volkswagen ID.3. (credit: Cupra)

Recently, we reviewed Audi's RS e-tron GT , a handsome four-door electric vehicle that, while closely related to the Porsche Taycan, still manages to feel quite distinctive to drive. As I detailed in that article, the practice of sharing common platforms or architectures has been a fact of life in the automotive industry for decades.

That's particularly true at Volkswagen Group, which uses a handful of platforms as the starting point for its collection of 10 brands. One of the newest of these platforms is known as MEB ( Modularer E-Antriebs-Baukasten or Modular Electrification Toolkit), and so far Ars has sampled MEB-based EVs in the form of the Volkswagen ID.4 crossover and then, more recently, the ID. Buzz minivan and the Audi Q4 e-tron crossover .

Not every MEB-based EV is destined for America, however. Volkswagen isn't bringing the Golf-sized ID.3 hatchback over to this side of the Atlantic, although based on European colleagues' takes on that car I'm not so sure we're missing out heavily. It is more unfortunate that US roads may also never see the Cupra Born, an electric hot hatch from a brand that got spun out of Seat in 2018 as a more performance-focused OEM. Friend of Ars Jonny Smith recently drove the Born and came away impressed, particularly since he was one of those reviewers underwhelmed by the ID.3 .

Enlarge / Danish racing driver Tom Kristensen leads another pair of Audi RS e-tron GTs through the corkscrew corner at Laguna Seca. (credit: Audi)

Call it platform sharing, call it badge engineering, call it what you like—car companies have collaborated with each other to make cars for much of the automobile's history. Sometimes these link-ups happen between companies that might normally be considered rivals: Honda and Rover in the 1980s; the BMW/Toyota project that gave us the new Supra; or perhaps the forthcoming electric vehicle platform-sharing between Ford and Volkswagen or General Motors and Honda .

More often, it occurs among the shared brands of a single OEM—Chrysler Group's K platform in the 1980s is a good example. But few automakers have exploited the advantages of that quite like Volkswagen Group, which builds hundreds of different vehicles across its 10 brands around the world using just a handful of different platforms. The vast majority of these—and we're talking several million cars a year—are built on VW Group's MQB platform, which can give rise to anything from an Audi A3 to a Volkswagen Transporter van, with cars and crossovers and SUVs of most sizes and shapes.

But even as you go up the price scale, this practice is still widely used. For example, for decades Bentleys were basically Rolls-Royces with a slightly different nose; today, they share platforms with Porsche's Panamera and Cayenne. And it's why the handsome four-door EV in this review wears Audi RS e-tron GT badging yet features very Porsche Taycan-like specifications—a consequence of sharing the same J1 platform.

Enlarge / You can tell this Polestar 2 is a bit more special than most Polestar 2s by the great big stripe and the large number two. (credit: Roberto Baldwin)

Polestar tunes Volvos. Polestar used to only tune Volvos. Taking a Volvo and making it better was Polstar’s only real job until it became one of the dozens of EV startups that have burst on the scene in the past 10 years. Now the company builds intriguing electric vehicles under the watchful eye of parent company Geely and quasi-parent Volvo.

But Polestar couldn’t deny its inclinations.

That’s how the Polestar 2 BST edition 2 (a garbled mouthful of a name) was born. A skunkworks project to tune a Polestar 2 by… well, Polestar. The chassis team wanted to make an “extraordinary version of the EV Christian Samson, Polestar’s head of product attributes told Ars Technica.

Enlarge / The exterior clues that this is a Porsche 718 GT4 ePerformance and not a 718 GT4 Clubsport are subtle; it's 140 mm (5.5 inches) wider, and the headlight projectors look more like a Taycan's than a Cayman's. But it's an all-electric car with more than a thousand horsepower on tap. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

Porsche provided a flight from DC to Milan and back, and plus two nights in a hotel so we could get briefed on VW Group's next EV platform. We also saw the reveal of its new Formula E car, which you were able to read about last week . Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

FRANCIACORTA, ITALY—The auto industry is in the midst of a mass transformation as we move towards product lineups that are mostly or even entirely electric. Some are handling this transformation better than others, as supply chain problems caused by the pandemic and invasion of Ukraine add further complications. Witness the sorry state of Jaguar, which cancelled an electric replacement for the XJ sedan at the last minute, or the repeated electric vehicle-related missteps we've seen from Toyota , Honda , and Mazda of late.

There appear to be no such woes at Porsche, however. In 2019 it debuted the Taycan , a four-door electric sportscar that remains one of the best EVs on sale . Since then it's added new Taycan variants, two different flavors of EV wagon included, all built in a factory in Zuffenhausen, Germany that's already carbon-neutral . (Porsche's Zuffenhausen factory uses a very heavy mix of renewable energy and biogas from waste materials, and has been independently certified by Germany's DGNB.)

But Porsche isn't resting on its laurels. Fine though the Taycan is, it really is just the start of the OEM's electrified journey—as long as you aren't counting some of Ferdinand Porsche's very earliest vehicles, like the Egger-Lohner C2 Phaeton of 1898 . Future battery EVs from Porsche will use an all-new flexible architecture called PPE—for premium platform electric—which the company is developing together with fellow VW Group sibling Audi (with Porsche taking the lead here).

Enlarge / Volvo's designers have evolved the distinctive "Thor's hammer" headlights. (credit: Volvo)

On Wednesday, Volvo gathered media together in Sweden to reveal a new car. It's called the EX90, and it's a battery-electric SUV that goes on sale in early 2024 alongside the conventionally powered XC90 SUV as the brand's new flagship.

"The Volvo EX90 is a statement for where we are, and where we are going. It's fully electric with a range of up to 300 miles on a single charge, designed to further raise our safety standards, the first Volvo car to be truly defined by its software and part of a wider ecosystem, connecting to your home and your other devices. The Volvo EX90 is the start of something new for Volvo Cars in many ways," said Volvo CEO Jim Rowan.

Immediately recognizable as a Volvo SUV thanks to its distinctive silhouette and light signatures, the EX90 uses the same new SPA2 electric vehicle architecture as the forthcoming Polestar 3 SUV , which like the EX90 will be built at Volvo's factory in Charleston, South Carolina.

Enlarge / BMW is now confident enough in its EV powertrains that it's made a fully electric 7 Series alongside the gasoline-powered versions. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

BMW provided three nights in a hotel and a flight from LA back to DC so we could drive the i7 and 760i. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

PALMS SPRINGS, Calif.—For decades, automakers like BMW and Mercedes-Benz have fought each other in group tests for the title of "world's best car," an honor awarded by various magazines. The battle has usually been between the 7 Series and the S-Class, with occasional challenges from Lexus. Jaguar and Cadillac often trail behind.

Today, there's a serious new contender for the crown as BMW's newest generation 7 Series goes on sale.

I got hooked on cars-as-technology during the early '90s, and what a way the cars have come since, as powertrains have pushed new limits and energy sources, and interiors have become more cosseting and protective of their occupants.

Enlarge / The 2024 Rolls-Royce Spectre EV will ride on 23-inch wheels.

Drive a modern Rolls-Royce and it's hard to escape the air of opulence. Deep shag lambswool carpets. A rear seat that hides its occupants from prying eyes. A headlining with thousands of LED stars that twinkle at night. But it's also hard to avoid thinking that even with a powerful 6.75 L V12 under the hood, there's a better alternative.

Rolls-Royce thinks so, too. Which is why on Tuesday, it debuted the Spectre, a new electric, fixed-head coupe that will reach its first well-heeled buyers in late 2023. It's the first battery-electric vehicle from the marque, but not the last—its entire lineup will be EV-only by 2030.

Now, to spare the anger of the traditionalists, consider this quote: "The electric car is perfectly noiseless and clean. There is no smell or vibration. They should become very useful when fixed charging stations can be arranged." No, not a post from any one of the numerous Ars comment threads about EVs, but Charles Stewart Rolls, one of the two eponymous founders of the company, speaking in 1900.

Enlarge / The Polestar 3's bodywork has been optimized in the wind tunnel. (credit: Polestar)

After a sublime-but-limited-production GT and a stylish fastback sedan , Polestar is launching its third vehicle, the aptly named Polestar 3. It's a performance-oriented SUV on the larger side of the spectrum, built on a new EV-only platform developed together with part-owner and Geely stablemate Volvo.

Polestar opens its order books for the Polestar 3 today, but if you push that button, be prepared for a bit of a wait before you take delivery, as the first cars may only reach these shores toward the end of next year. But Polestar is pretty sure this one will resonate with a North American audience, and local production of the Polestar 3 in Ridgeville, South Carolina, should begin in 2024.

"Polestar 3 is a powerful electric SUV that appeals to the senses with a distinct, Scandinavian design and excellent driving dynamics. It also takes our manufacturing footprint to the next level, bringing Polestar production to the United States. We are proud and excited to expand our portfolio as we continue our rapid growth," said Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath.

Enlarge / The Mercedes-Benz EQE sedan's shape has been designed to create as little drag as possible.

Mercedes-Benz provided flights from DC to Denver and back, plus two nights in a hotel, so we could drive the EQE sedan and the EQS SUV, which you'll be able to read about on September 29. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

DENVER—No one has more experience with launching new cars than Mercedes-Benz, the world's oldest existing automaker. The company is at the start of a new phase of its existence, as it transforms into a carbon-neutral company that mostly builds electric vehicles. But it's sticking to some tried and true strategies as it does.

So, like the smaller, cheaper E-Class that follows the S-Class sedan, the EQE sedan will arrive this fall in the US to follow last year's bigger, more expensive EQS sedan .

Built using Mercedes' new EVA2 platform for EVs, the EQE is obviously related to the EQS; the two cars look similar, having been optimized to the nth degree by the wind tunnel and computational fluid dynamics. It's an evolution of the cab-forward "four-door coupe" look that the company pioneered on the CLS, but with any rough edges polished away to aid the air's passage over and around the bodywork as efficiently as possible. Mercedes hasn't published the EQE's drag coefficient, but I'd be surprised if it was higher than the EQS's remarkable 0.2, given that it rides on smaller 19-inch wheels.