2023 Polestar 2 review: Do you need the Performance pack?

There’s a lot of chatter about the Polestar 2 in the Wheels office.

Not because it’s Australia’s best-selling car or even the country’s best-selling EV (it's neither), but because this is a car you can really tailor to your needs with the careful ticking of options boxes.

And here’s the trick: you’ll want the Plus pack with the ventilated leather seats. Yeah, it will add a total of $12,000 to the purchase price of any Polestar 2 variant – Standard Range, Long Range or Dual Motor as tested here – but if you like staying cool and calm in your EV, it’s well worth the cash.

Polestar’s ordering system also strikes us as an honest way to sell a vehicle. There’s no “oh the nice seats are off-limits because you ordered the slow motor”. Instead, if you want it, you can have it.

Of course, it’s easy to say that when you’re a motoring journalist who isn’t about to splash the $91,700 (before on-road costs) tested price of this car, but don’t write the options off without reading this review.

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Polestar 2: The basics

JUMP AHEAD

• How much is it, and what do you get?
• How do rivals compare on value?
• Interior comfort, space and storage
• What is it like to drive?
• How much energy does it use?
• How safe is it?
• Warranty and running costs
• VERDICT
• Specifications

How much is it, and what do you get?

The Polestar 2 range kicks off at $63,900 before on-road costs, but our tested Long Range Dual Motor (LRDM) starts life from a reasonable $73,400 (before on-road costs), considering you get a bigger battery and a lot more performance.

For that money you get:

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Rarely is a Polestar sent on its way from Chengdu without some tasty extras, however.

Starting with the $1500 ‘Thunder’ metallic paintwork and $1400 20-inch five V-spoke alloy wheels, our test car is almost as loaded as Polestar will let you get it.

The $3400 Pilot Lite pack is an almost mandatory selection, adding:

Then there’s the Plus pack, which is transformative to the cabin ambience.

The powerful, clear and balanced 10-speaker Harman Kardon system is almost worth the $6000 on its own but is also bundled with:

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There’s one extra option you can tick for the Plus pack, and that is gorgeous Zinc-coloured Nappa leather upholstery combined with matching Light Ash wood trim inserts and three-stage fan ventilation for both front seats. That’s the $6K mentioned at the start, and in the hot Australian sun it’s worth the extra cash.

For those chasing stratospheric performance (and a price tag to match) the $8000 Performance pack brings Brembo brakes, Öhlins adjustable suspension, gold seatbelts and lightweight 20-inch alloys wrapped in sporty Continental tyres.

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How do rivals compare on value?

The Polestar 2 LRDM measures up favourably against its performance-oriented rivals when in un-optioned $73,400 guise.

A Tesla Model 3 Performance will set you back $91,395, a Kia EV6 GT-Line AWD $87,590 and a Hyundai Ioniq 5 Epiq AWD $85,000, all before on-road costs.

Once you get into the meat of the options, though, the Polestar lives up to its premium price tag. At $91,700 before on-road costs, our tested car strikes reasonable value against the above rivals, but not quite as sharp as when devoid of options.

It's also worth noting that all three of this rivals are considerably more spacious than the Polestar 2, so if that's a priority for you, don't forget that detail.

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Comparisons

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Interior comfort, space and storage

If you’ve read previous Polestar reviews by Wheels you might have caught criticism of its hot cabin.

It’s true, and something the lucky Swedes don’t have to deal with (or rather, when they do have to it’s ecstasy instead of misery).

This particular example suffered a lot less with its light-coloured upholstery and seat ventilation. Perhaps if there was a light-colour cloth option too, it would help. The 12-way adjustable seats with extendable under-thigh cushions and silky-smooth leather made this particular Polestar 2 a cool spot to whittle away the hours.

It’s ergonomic excellence that really sets Polestar apart. You sit low in the cabin, and that won’t be to the taste of loungey-Tesla lovers.

Even though Polestar’s Google Automotive interface software is excellent and customisable, it can’t quite compare with the American start-up’s processing power, but there are clever touches such as placing the flat-topped gear selector in just the right spot to rest your wrist.

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Extra details like the tactility of the ash wood trim, smoothly-damped window switches and soothing indicator sound all help. Only the piano black gear selector surround looks cheap.

Because the Polestar 2 is built on a shared ICE and EV CMA platform, it has a high transmission tunnel that makes it hard to squeeze three across the back. Leg- and toe-room four outboard passengers are good, though tall folks will find headroom limiting.

The Polestar 2’s boot is rated at 405L (VDA) and is easy to load bulky items, such as bicycles, thanks to the full-width hatch opening. A divider pops up from the floor with hooks to secure shopping bags and there’s a little extra free-form storage beneath the boot floor, but no spare tyre.

Under the bonnet, Polestar also includes 45 litres of storage. As with most EVs though, the ceremonious opening of the bonnet using a hefty pull tab to access such a small storage space feels cumbersome – we hope this will be solved in next-gen EVs.

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What is it like to drive?

Let's get speed out of the way first, because it’s effortless.

The 300kW of power and 660Nm of torque is so easy to access; simply nail the throttle when the light turns green and the twin electric motors with AWD will churn you and your passengers’ stomachs inside out.

Polestar claims a 0-100km/h sprint of 4.7 seconds, but honestly, it feels quicker judging by the way the 2 rockets its 2113kg mass to 80km/h. Acceleration feels like it falls off a little over 100km/h, but that’s the case with most EVs.

Whether all that power is necessary is questionable, too. A 170kW/330Nm single-motor Polestar 2 is more than capable of carrying five passengers without struggling.

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Of all the systems we’ve tried, Polestar’s regenerative braking feels the most natural.

There are three settings: Off, Low and Normal and the pedal’s linear progression helps make each mode usable, with a simple learning curve for the most powerful setting.

Polestar also provides options to adjust the steering weight, with Firm ending up as my preference. Oddly there’s no performance-oriented mode for the Polestar 2, just one setting, which is almost refreshing in an otherwise complex vehicle.

When you start pushing the Polestar 2’s chassis through corners, it’s evident just how much energy those two motors are capable of putting through its 245/40/R20 Continental Premium Contact 6 tyres. This generates roll, especially from the rear on corner exit.

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There’s never a scary moment in the twin-motor Polestar as the chassis is ultimately very benign, but you can see where a little bit more rebound control and spring stiffness would help the fast EV corner with more confidence.

It is a trade-off from being much more agreeable in urban comfort terms than the very firm and linear Öhlins dampers that come with the Performance pack.

Not to say this car is ultra plush like a Mercedes-Benz EQA, but the regular Polestar offers adequate comfort. Visibility is also strong for a sedan, though it can’t match the widescreen view of the Volvo XC40 electric.

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How much energy does it use?

Here’s where the most powerful Polestar 2 starts to make a little less sense.

In Australian conditions and on high-speed roads, the heavy Polestar 2 Dual Motor doesn’t mind guzzling down some electrons.

The Long Range Dual Motor’s rated WLTP driving range is 487km from a 78kWh lithium-ion battery. Energy consumption is 19.3kWh/100km according to WLTP figures.

After 480km of driving over a week, we didn’t get that; the final figure was 20.5kWh/100km according to the onboard computer, for a tested driving range of 366km.

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Partially this was down to the test loop; we did a pretty standard Sunday drive leaving Sydney and heading south on the Hume Highway following the 110km/h posted speed limit for an hour or so, before winding through the hilly Southern Highlands with the intention of stopping at the Mittagong RSL 50kW NRMA charger.

Except, on arrival, there was a queue of four cars waiting ahead. Uh oh, what to do?

Hypermiling to Sutton Forest’s 350kW ultra-rapid Evie location was the answer where, instead of lemon lime and bitters, Sunday lunch and a wind-down, a new app had to be downloaded using McDonald’s free wifi in the stinging sun. We appreciate that there’ll be less hassle next time, now that the application is on the phone and an account is set up.

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With so many disparate charging networks out there, it’s still more difficult to charge an EV than tapping a card at a register.

Once hooked up, the Polestar sucked electrons down like a champion. Starting from a seven per cent charge, it reached 90 per cent in 38 minutes, taking on 63kWh of juice. That’s very respectable, pretty much matching Polestar’s charging speed claim of 10-80 per cent in 31 minutes.

Home charging will take eight hours from 0-100 per cent using an 11kW three-phase wallbox, 12 hours on a 7kW single-phase unit and 38 hours from a three-pin socket.

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How safe is it?

ANCAP rated the Polestar 2 range five stars under the 2021 safety testing protocol.

The Polestar 2 is equipped with forward auto emergency braking including pedestrian, cyclist and junction detection, lane-departure warning, eight airbags and speed sign recognition.

As detailed above, the Pilot Lite pack adds rear cross-traffic alert, blind-spot monitoring and advanced highway travel assist programs. The adaptive cruise has a tendency to creep from the desired speed, sometimes up to 5km/h, though the lane-trace system worked well.

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Warranty and running costs

Polestar’s warranty is five years and unlimited kilometres on everything but the 27-module battery, which is warranted to stay above 70 per cent performance for eight years or 160,000km.

If segments of the battery fail in a Polestar, there are in-house battery service centres that will be able to individually replace faulty modules.

One of the great draws to electric vehicles is low maintenance. In Polestar’s case, a trip to the mechanic is due once every two years or 30,000km. Five years of free servicing is included with the purchase price, too.

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VERDICT

It may not be the most efficient EV out there, but the Polestar 2 is a particularly suave choice.

The Dual Motor version tested here is overkill for most, because really, who needs to hit 100km/h in under five seconds?

Instead of getting the extra motor, then, the Long Range Single Motor fitted with the same options as our tested vehicle would be a spectacular choice for $85K.

It may not qualify for any incentives, but then the Polestar 2 specced up like this is an inspired and premium choice to rival the BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class, not one for the masses.

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Polestar 2 LRDM Specifications

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