pbm317

Alright, we’re a bit overdue for a long-term update on our Polestar 2. It’s been about 9 months and we’ve put just over 4,500 miles on the car. So yes, not a ton of miles as we’re still mostly working from home, but they’ve been a solid 4,500 miles.
Sizing up the Polestar 2 against the Toyota bZ4X.

Tire-ing

Early on, we did have to make a swap out of the tires. The Polestar 2 comes with summer performance tires, even for those living in winter/winterish weather climates. It’s definitely not ideal. I assume the summer tires help achieve whatever EPA mileage/range rating they set out for. Anyways, we don’t get terrible winters in the Washington, D.C. area, but enough that I wouldn’t want to drive this powerful car around in our very hilly neighborhood and driveway with those should snow and ice make an appearance (which they both did).

Loved the option of having our tire set installed at our home.

We opted to go with a set of Michelin Cross Climate 2 tires all around. We ordered them through TireRack and had their mobile installation service come swap out our tires right in our driveway. It was a seamless and easy experience and one we’d definitely use again in the future for tire needs. While we didn’t switch back to the summer performance tires this year, maybe we’ll try next summer.

Mmmm that new tire smell

Drive Me!

The drive of the Polestar 2 is still a delight. Instant power available at the blip of the pedal doesn’t really get old. Even our 3 year old loves the immediate surge of acceleration. Handling is well balanced and fairly adept for a tidy little sport sedan that still tips the scales more akin to something like a midsize SUV. Ride is definitely on the firmer side of the spectrum. While never too jarring, you to tend to feel most of the bumps and potholes in the road. The car does settle down quickly though, with minimal secondary motions. Near perfect balance for a performance sedan that you can still drive daily. I often seek to go out for a spirited drive in the Polestar, can’t say I ever did that with our Audi e-tron we had prior to this.

Can it roadtrip?

EVs are excellent around town. No gas needed and can easily perform an overnight top off/recharge at home via our level 2 charger. When it comes to roadtrips however, it does take a modicum of thought and adjustment to the trip cadence. Luckily there are some good apps to help like A Better Route Planner (ABRP). ABRP allows you to choose your specific EV and look at potential charging route options. You can set your start and end point, as well as what your starting state of charge would be. It tells you where to stop, how long the ideally charge for and show you your predicted state of charge upon arriving at your end location.


Really useful to check the charging plan for the trip with ABRP!

While many metrics discuss how long it takes for an EV to charge back up to 100%, you’ll realize that charging back up “full”, as you might have done with a gas tank, isn’t what happens. So you may have more frequent, but shorter charging stops. This helps optimize time as charging rates slow way down the higher you charge your battery. So it may be best to just do a 20 minute charging session and go say from a 20% state of charge up to 60% etc. Of course that 20 minutes depends on a charging station being available right when you get there, and that the charging station is functioning properly, both of which can be a bit suspect, but is improving. Luckily there are apps like PlugShare that can try to help you determine that end of the equation. Also should note that the embedded Google Maps within the Polestar’s native infotainment system is also able to help determine charging routing and planning, fairly similar to the ABRP recommendation.

I was able to make it from our DC area home, up to New York and back with a few quick charge stops each way. I was able to easily leverage our free 30 minute Electrify America charging sessions and never had an issue in immediate charger availability or operation during our quick trek. Is it something I’d want to do with my wife and daughter in tow? Probably not, but it also wasn’t as much a drag as I thought it would have been.



OMG OTA!

We have received yet another over the air software update for the Polestar. We’re now on what Polestar call version 2.2. This brought, among other things like elevated total driving range, Apple CarPlay. I can see the value in CarPlay for people reliant on apps like Waze and/or Apple Music etc, that somehow aren’t available through Google App Store for the onboard infotainment system. However, I haven’t found myself plugging in with it. I love the embedded Google Maps as well as the Spotify App with my account logged in already, so don’t see the need for CarPlay. Maybe for some more text message visualization it would be nice, but not worth having to plug in the phone each time, at least to me.

CarPlay now in the Polestar!

Quick Hits and Misses

Love the “phone as a key” feature. I can use my iPhone as the key to the car. I don’t need to take my phone out of my pocket and the doors will still unlock/lock as I touch the handle and I can just get in and drive. No need for the keys, very convenient, the future is now!

Flip out hook from the glove box is perfect for helping keep carry out/take away food bag secure!
Genius!

Inside, the WeaveTech seats, while durable and have held up well and are easy to wipe up and clean, don’t seem to breathe as well as say a cloth seat or a perforated seat might. In our hot and ultra muggy summer weather it’s been slightly uncomfortable on warmer days or longer treks. Polestar does offer a ventilated seat option, but only with the leather interior upgrade, which we didn’t opt for.

Glass Roof: the solar tinting does an admirable job of cutting the glare and heat from above, but I’d still like the option of a full closing shade. Especially to keep rear passengers a bit more protected from the sun.

Software Hiccup: We did have one instance where the infotainment system wasn’t displaying the backup camera in reverse and the HVAC controls (on screen) also disappeared. Fixed the glitch with a soft reset/reboot of the entire system.

Non-extending sun visors: This was something we knew before buying. For the life of me I don’t understand the aversion that Volvo and Polestar have to providing customers with sun visors that can be extended (also many Porsches). The sun on the side window always comes in for my seating position exactly in the gap between the stubby little visor and the pillar of the door. Why?! Luckily I found these TuckVisors on Amazon. The full blackout shades are a bit stark and cut down on peripheral visibility significantly, but the tinted shades are nice and are effective. Per their name, they slide and tuck in well to the window edge, granted the window needs to be closed.

Polestar, please bring extending sun visors! The sun shines right in this gap for my seating position.

Tinted TuckShade fits well and is easy to use!

FatherTo1

Great write-up and wow, that bZ really dwarfs the PoleStar! I didn’t realize the PS is that small, or the bZ is that big. As a shareholder, I am hoping PoleStar does well long term. Owner reviews have certainly been promising.

AMIRZA786

Great review! I'm starting to see more Polestars on the road here in the Bay area. I actually had that same glitch you had, happened only once and an infotainment system reboot fixed it. Never happened again. Since I'm in California, I'm going to stick with summer tires, I really like the Michelins they came with. I might buy out the car at the end of the lease, I got a really good deal before prices shot up

AMIRZA786

I'm holding their stock as well. A little disappointing, but I'm in it for the long term. The Polestar 2 is considered a compact sports fastback. It's definitely not a family hauler, it's about as roomy as an IS350, but if you fold the rear seats down you can fit a lot of stuff

FatherTo1

Thanks, AMIRZA, that helps relating it to an IS350. I have seen the PS2 on the road but not up close yet. The nearest showroom is almost 100 miles away from me.

AMIRZA786

I'm not sure about your area, but they will bring one to you for a test drive. Go online and see if you can have them bring one to you. They brought it to my office and let me have at it for 30 minutes. You won't get any sales pressure, they are brought to you by a CS rep

FatherTo1

We are not in the market for a car so I don’t want to drag someone out to Sacramento for my sake. I will, however, test drive it if we happen to visit the Bay Area and are near a dealership with time to kill.

I have an appointment at the Tesla service center this Friday and there’s a Porsche dealership less than a mile away. Like I said, not in the market for another car, but I’m tempted to stop by and see if they allow test drives of the Taycan. It is strange, the Panamera looks good to me but the Taycan Cross Turismo does not. Definitely prefer the regular Taycan body style over the wagon version.

EDIT: I take that back. Watching more videos, the Cross Turismo style is growing on me.

AMIRZA786

I Love the way the Taycan looks, but it's too rich for my blood. My budget for a family car would be around $75k max, and for my own personal commuter is $50k

FatherTo1

No, I hear ya. It would definitely put us beyond our comfort zone. I configured a base Taycan with just a few options and it was already 100K…for the base RWD model. And it wouldn’t be the primary family car at that! That will be hard for me to justify. There are other goals I’d like us to achieve before checking off “Porsche EV”.

dojoman

iTrader: (5)

I’m on EV bandwagon. Picked up this guy last week, same 0-60 as my IS350 but it has quite a punch can’t even compare to my IS. Sport mode has even more aggressive pull.

AMIRZA786

Congrats! That's awesome! Once you go EV, it's like a drug that won't let you go back. My wife drives a 2020 Hyundai Ioniq, it only has 138 hp, but it's smoother than any 4 cylinder with 200 hp due to its instant torque and zero NVH. It's on a three year lease, but I got it so cheap before all the price gouging I'm going to buy it out and give it to my son

Vladi

This is a Polestar 2 thread but it has a potential to become general electric car thread so here is a little hack when it comes to 0-100kmh acceleration of brand new PHEV Mazda CX-60. Put it in Offroad mode and it will shave more than a half a second from manufacturer claimed acceleration time of 5.8 seconds. For some reason Offroad mode does it in tad bit less than 5.2 while Sports mode hits it 5.8 flat. Normal mode does it in 6.2 while pure EV mode does it in over 12 seconds. So there is that.

AMIRZA786

Interesting. Is this Mazda in the US market or just the European market?

FatherTo1

Interesting. I wonder if off-road mode prioritizes torque delivery, resulting in quicker off-the-line sprints too.

pbm317

Congrats dojoman! Really like the i4 for what it is. Similar packaging as they both wedged EV into existing ICE platforms. Only had brief spins in the i4 and iX but really enjoyed them.