Flop in. Flick the stick to Drive. Go.
That’s how a car used to be. You just drove. The Polestar 3 demands a bit more respect, though. It’s a machine you have to learn. Like a Rubik’s Cube for your wrists. And honestly? My kids are already jealous. We’re talking about who gets the keys if I fall off the side of a building. Dark. I know. But that’s parenting for you.
Practicality Isn’t What It Used To Be
Paper says modest. Reality says… useful.
The boot is 484 litres. It’s square. It holds things. I haul my son’s entire football team existence in there—balls, bibs, cones. It keeps the garage from turning into a storage unit. The frunk? Technically exists. Practically? A trap. You have to roll cables perfectly tight or they won’t fit. So we dump them in the back. Sloppy? Maybe. Effective? Absolutely.
Up top, there’s that huge glass roof. Beautiful in the photos. Dazzling in the summer heat. There is an electrochromic tint option that costs £1,600. It dims the glass. Smart. We didn’t get it. So the kids stare into the sun. Let’s see how they feel about this “open air” concept in August. No sun blind. Just glass.
The Software Trap
Mileage: 10,869
Efficiency: 3.1 mi/kWh
I think I finally cracked the code. Or maybe it cracked me.
Time helps. You get used to the quirks. The biggest win? Digital keys. Apple Wallet. It actually unlocks the car when you walk up to it. The physical fob is useless. Its battery retention is worse than an old iPhone. And harder to charge. I don’t carry the fob anymore. Who needs redundancy?
Polestar did fix the core processor recently. A retro-fit for everyone. Good. It unlocked a missing feature: distance control for cruise control. It was bafflingly absent. Now it’s on the touchscreen. Accessible. Logic applied, eventually.
The cruise buttons themselves? Still nonsense. Everyone else does stalk controls or simple steering wheel taps. Polestar wanted to be clever. They failed. The buttons on the wheel try too hard to reinvent a flat tire. It’s clunky. It’s unintuitive. Don’t be smart with things that work perfectly fine as is.
Old Games, New Tech
I play Angry Birds in my 2023 SUV.
Why not? I wait for my daughter while she leads Brownies. The Google OS on the screen is brilliant. The nav is faster than Apple CarPlay. Which, by the way, is still a glitchy mess. Wireless connection? A gamble. Sometimes it connects. Sometimes I sit in the drive-through for five minutes wondering if my phone even exists to the car.
The built-in nav knows the car’s battery. It tells you exactly how much charge you’ll have upon arrival. No more guessing. No more postcode trauma. Just input a destination. Drive there.
Is 3.1 miles per kWh good? It’s… acceptable. Official figures are a dream. Reality is the waking world. We’re at roughly 300 real-world miles from a 438 official mile range. That’s 70%. Passable. Not great. I can make my Sussex-to-Bedford run—over 230 miles round trip—without panic. Last time? 14% battery left. Comforting.
The Price of Entry
Price: £69,910 (plus options)
We bought the wrong car.
At least according to our own editorial guidelines. We usually prefer the Dual Motor. More power. Adaptive air suspension that eats potholes for breakfast. But this one? The Single Motor? It goes further. 438 miles official range. It’s the longest range EV we’ve ever held.
Why do it? Range anxiety. Even for people who say they don’t have it. The Dual Motor dropped 40 miles of range. I don’t need that extra speed. I need the battery. The 7.5 second 0-62 is relaxed. For a 300hp SUV. It moves. It doesn’t sprint. I don’t mind.
Kit? None missed. Head-up display. Heated seats everywhere. Three-zone climate. Every safety sensor known to man. We added extra packs for £12k. The Magnesium paint was standard. And it looks better than any other colour on this body. Blue looks corporate. Black hides dust. White is boring. This grey? It works.
The key fob incident still rankles. No unlock button. You rely on the phone app. Your kid runs back to the car. They forget their phone. They lock themselves out. You stand there. Frozen. Using the app to open the door feels like a concession. I missed the old plastic keys. The tactile click. The certainty.
Touchscreens hide everything. Climate control? At least that’s on the bottom bar. Easy access. The rest? Buried. Swipe, swipe, scroll. It’s 2024. We shouldn’t need a password to defog our mirrors.
But it drives. It gets us there. It’s plush. The ride is firm, sure. But the range is solid. I’m not looking over my shoulder at the charge % gauge. I’m just driving.
Which is enough, for now. Until the sun gets really bright. Or the CarPlay decides to crash again.
“Modern cars are no longer a hop-in-and-device.”
Wait. Let that sink in. You have to log in to drive your vehicle. How did we get here?
Does it matter if it’s 3.0 mi/kWh or 3.1? Does the missing button change the destination? Maybe. Or maybe I’ll just stop taking the kids. See what happens.
