Polestar 3 - long-term review

The Polestar 3? It’ll be great when it’s finished. Which it may well now be. As noted in my previous report, the MY 2026 car gets a substantial boost in processing power, and is now capable of 254 trillion calculations per second. That said, that’s half of what Volvo promises in the new ES90. Though that’s because the Volvo has Lidar and the 3 doesn’t. Lidar requires twice as many microprocessors apparently.

Anyway, this stuff matters because it’s what carmakers really mean when they say their shiny new thing is ‘software defined’. It should also smooth out and perhaps even eradicate the problems that have made seven months with the Polestar 3 frustrating at times.

But first, the good bits. This is a great looking car, as contemporary a piece of automotive design as exists right now. With its optional Nappa leather (animal welfare natch) and zinc and black ash trim, the interior is equal parts restful and stimulating. It has the pace and handling to go with the design bona fides, but as with most EVs I preferred to drive it in a way that maximised its range. Rarely has 510bhp gone so under-utilised. It has a clever diff and a genuinely capable chassis, but there really is a limit to how fast you want to go round corners in a 2.5-tonne electric SUV.

Then there’s the 3’s Bowers & Wilkins audio system, with its Abbey Road and Dolby Atmos functionality. It has an output of 1,610 watts, no fewer than 25 speakers – with integration in the head rests – and includes four 2.5cm Nautilus double dome tweeters, so the system is already phenomenally powerful. On top of which, the company’s engineers captured more than 60 measurements using special speakers and microphones to sonically map each of Abbey Road’s studios and various bits of audio hardware. There are four modes; ‘Energised’ suits modern pop and electronica, ‘intimate’ is good for Nick Drake, podcasts and audiobooks. The whole set-up is astounding.

In terms of energy consumed, I used 1,950 kWh of electricity across 5,500 miles, for an average of 2.8 mpkWh. Given the battery’s capacity, that equates to a range of about 300 miles, give or take. Of course, it’s hypothetical. I never got close to the claimed max range, not least because the car’s systems recommend charging to 90 per cent rather than 100 per cent, to protect the cells’ well-being. They’re not keen on charge dropping below 10 per cent either, so the real world range is clipped.

Polestar has also taken something as basic as the car’s key and made it way more complicated than it should be. The credit card bit needs a transponder to function properly, and that needs regular charging. The car’s inductive charging pad only works half the time. Of course, the solution is to set up the digital key, allowing the car to recognise your smartphone or watch. But again, it doesn’t always work. Grubbing around trying to access your £93k car in the rain in a dark car park is a sub-optimal look.

The disappointments stemmed mainly from software glitches. At various times, we had issues with the climate control, the audio volume, and the touchscreen. There are workarounds, based on rebooting the system, and the bother was always fixable. This is a scenario you’ll likely encounter in many new cars, with their surfeit of systems and connectivity, and the need to conduct regular OTA updates. On which basis, the Polestar 3 should soon be a car that fully delivers on the promise of its aesthetics and capable dynamics.

Ironic, isn’t it, that the hardware part of the story is the one that performed faultlessly.