One of the more interesting recent Tesla Model 3 competitors is the Polestar 2, made in China by Geely as Volvo’s electric sibling marque. of the Polestar 2 and g, but now, finally, we’ve been shown that it has fun, animated taillights. This is important taillight news.

UK-based auto journo Steve Fowler seems to have gotten his hands on a Polestar 2, and tweeted out this little video of the animated dance the taillights do, presumably when the car is remotely locked or unlocked:

The illuminated dance begins with the amber indicator lights flashing from their clear-lensed niches nestled inside the square-bracket-shaped taillight ends, and then the whole distilled-to-the-essence bull horn shape is illuminated red, beginning in the middle and spreading out in both directions simultaneously.

Once fully illuminated, the indicators flash again, and the red depletes from the lamps, working backwards from the edges to the center.

If modern taillights are going to be composed of matrices of individual LEDs, why wouldn’t a carmaker seek to add a bit of animated fun like this?

I’m very pro-animated taillights, whether its sequential turn signals or displays like this. It’s just fun, and it’s a hell of a lot easier than it was back in the day when Thunderbirds had complicated and clever electromechanical setups to get effects like this:

Ford was a real pioneer here, using an actual motor that had a set of three cams per side that physically made contact to close switches to send the 12V of electricity to the inboard, center, and outboard lamps in order. It was kind of like a complicated little music box.

See? It’s always been fun. Glad to see some carmakers still remember that. I’m sure there’s plenty more to be seen on the Polestar 2, but for now I’m glad to see the importance of compelling taillights hasn’t been ignored.