So I took my son to the Eagles-Steelers game last weekend (very nice win for Philly) but had to go visit a friend the day we flew in. So I used some Hertz points and rented a "Hybrid" sedan. The picture was a Ford Fusion so OK. With points for one day it was a $16 rental. Great. Get to the lot and my name is on the board (President's circle), so I go to my assigned spot and find this sitting there:




As my son said, "What the hell is this"? So I told him it was a Polestar 2, a Volvo company. As I walked around the car I took the obligatory pics so they can't tell me I did something to the car. Kind of surprised at the appearance. Yes, it is a hatchback but it doesn't look ungainly like the Tesla hatch. So more pics and my impressions:







Exterior: It has an awkward appearance at first glance, but if you know cars a little bit, it's like an S60, just raised up a little. I like the logo being body color and blended in so as not to say too much. A plain grille, the LED "Thor's Hammer" running lights, the full LED tails, and the "frameless" side mirrors are a nice touch. Being raised up on the suspension means black plastic cladding around the wheel wells. Normally something I really hate (think Audi All Road). But in this application it looks thin, but the dark grey paint of the car also offsets this.






Interior: The fit and finish is excellent. Typical of a Volvo product, I like the way they blended the dash materials so you don't have too much of an expanse of nothing but a hard plastic. Materials are top quality, the area below the dash is actually woven fabric. The shifter is hollow so you can put your fingers through it. The logo lighting up is a nice touch. The seats are typical Volvo. Very supportive and feels good to the back side. This car did have a seat heater and that worked well later that night. One thing weird was looking down to push the "P" to put the car in park. No feeling of engagement, and I Was worried the car would start rolling once I got out. Not the case of course. Everything just shut off after I hit the lock on the key fob.

HVAC and Controls: There are quite a few controls on the steering wheel, which I did not get into as I only had the car for a brief amount of time. But it did let me configure the dash where Google maps was in the center and the speedometer was on the lower left and charge state was lower right (the night time pic above. Yes, speeding a bit. Ha). I liked that the menus on the screen in the middle were fairly easy to navigate, even while driving. At the bottom is a fan display. press that and the full HVAC screen comes up and you can adjust all the controls.

For the car itself, there is a separate menu to change the driving dynamics of the car. First is steering feel (light, normal, and stiff if I remember the settings correctly). The stiff setting was a bit rough. It really made it a bit difficult to judge how much effort was needed. The normal or middle setting was good. And I really couldn't tell that his was an electronic steering setup. I could feel the road, and the suspension absorbed the expansion joints in the road quite well. Very comfortable to drive and turn with.

Acceleration: As with any EV, I expected this to be off the charts. Well, it was fairly mild and OK until I discovered the sport mode. When that is activated, it turns off the anti-skid control. And once I got a chunk of free, open road (no residential areas, highway only) with no cars, well, is all I can say. I went from about 40 to 100 in a few blinks. It was fast as....... So i tried this from a stop in the industrial area near the airport (no cars, wide open 4 lane roads no businesses or houses. And I do believe the 4.0 0-60. My head was thrown back in the seat and I thought I was on a jet.

Range: When we got the car, it had about 86% charge. They told me to just return it with about 10% left. So no charging or fuel to buy. Sweet. I took the charge down to about 30% when I returned it.

Trunk space: Not as much as I thought it would be. I thought there would be more but I guess the battery takes up a lot of room. Load floor was flat and went tot he back of the back seats. And the seats looked like they could fold down but I didn't try to do that.

The Bad: There has to be something wrong with the car, and maybe this was a one off but the sync with my phone was great at first. So Airport to hotel was fine. I set it up, it found it and off we went. After the hotel, it would not sync, the map stayed static, and the system was hung up and would not release my phone. No matter what we did, we deleted the phone. Re-added it. but it kept the old map up and just stayed in this hung up state. But late that night after dinner, we got back in the car and it freed up. So my son synced his iPhone to it (mine is Android) and it was seamless.

So the main question is would I now consider and EV? After driving this one, yes I would. If this was my daily to/from work and driving around here where I live I would be a very happy camper. But it would have to be the dual motor, AWD version like I had. And not the single motor FWD car. The problem I have is I don't have $50K sitting around for a new car. The range on this is not an issue as long as I am not leaving the area. But longer trips up to Denver / Fort Collins would be fine. The display even has a button to find charging stations nearby.

Oh, last pic. Early morning looking up at the sunroof. The glass actually covers the whole roof and the Polestar logo is there. Now,if they can make this pane of glass a solar cells to help recharge, that would be excellent.

 

Nice write up, I think I'd have the 2 over the 3.

 

Great review of a short term drive. I feel like what you wrote above is what a lot of people would find if they were to actually try one out themselves.

I chuckled at your acceleration bit remembering that the Polestar is actually one of the slower EV's lol.

 

4.0 0-60 isn't bad and plenty for the majority of drivers.
IIRC, my C300 was right at 6sec 0-60. More's better, but I never felt underpowered.

 

0-60 on
the single motor is 7 sec.

the dual motor is 4.2 sec

 

If you like the Polestar 2, you might really like the mechanically identical XC40 Recharge. Having test driven both, the only reason I'd get the P*2 is if I were going to get the performance package, which isn't offered on the XC40. However, the XC40 feels more upscale inside (the P*2 vegan interior doens't feel particularly luxurious unless you opt for the $6000 leather upgrade), it's more practical, it handles almost as well since it's still got a low center of gravity, and most importantly it comes with a sunshade for the big pano roof. I tested them in 90F weather and I was baking in the P*2.

 

Fair. But I've been in my XC90 now for 11 years (delivered Christmas 2011). I guess I'm tired of being in an SUV and want a car. Wagon preferred (Polestar hint, hint. Make a wagon version with a bigger battery).

 

I was close. I read the C&D review and they got 4.1 0-60 with the dual motor. But anything in the 4 second range will feel fast as hell to me, compared to my XC90. And if that's slow compared to other models, well, I'm OK with this amount of slow.

 

Yep and 4s to 60 is still really fast but in a world where there are EV's that go 2s faster to 60 and pickup trucks that go a full second faster, it's on the slower side.

Launch control in a Tesla Plaid is lunacy. Nothing really prepares you for that lol.

 

Good write up but from the B Pillar back that car is just ugly.