10 Things Worth Knowing About the New Polestar 2 EV – Car and Driver

You should buy a Polestar 2 on-line virtually as simply as shopping for a pair of socks from Amazon. However there are at the moment solely 4 Polestar “areas”—vendor areas the place you’ll be able to see and test-drive a 2 and in addition get it serviced—in all of America, three in California and one in Manhattan. For those who’re inside 150 miles of a Polestar house, the “vendor” will ship your newly bought automobile to your house and decide it up for service, no cost. For those who’re past that distance, although, you may must actually pay the freight to have it shipped to you and shipped again to the vendor for service. This doesn’t sound like the best advertising plan for a really marketable car.

Rear seat riders particularly will love the Polestar 2 launch version’s customary glass roof. Not solely does it lengthen from the place the solar visors retailer rearward to only forward of the rear hatch opening, but it surely has no cross-car roof-support bar aft of the entrance seats. The view to the solar, moon, and stars is thus unobstructed and really panoramic, one thing finest appreciated from the rear seat.

Polestar says manufacturing variations of the two will probably be outfitted with the corporate’s pixel LED headlights, which have 84 particular person pixel gentle sources. (Our pre-production take a look at automobile was not so outfitted.) In Europe-market fashions, the system’s digital camera detects the headlights of oncoming site visitors and routinely pivots the person pixels left and proper as wanted to separate the beam across the approaching car, thereby conserving the lights from blinding oncoming drivers. The corporate says that this enables the two’s driver to motor alongside at evening with excessive beams on on a regular basis. Sadly, America’s antediluvian headlight rules do not permit the pivoting function, so Polestar 2 drivers should ensure that their excessive beams are dimmed as wanted.

The massive 78 kWh battery is made up of 284 cells, weighs 1098 kilos, and is housed in an aluminum case bolted beneath the two’s passenger compartment. Polestar claims the ultra-stiff case really stiffens the automobile’s physique construction significantly. It is possible a part of the rationale that the two felt as strong as granite and was rattle free—even with out the structural roof crossmember spanning the B-pillars that’s frequent in vehicles with massive glass roofs. The central location of the battery’s mass throughout the 2’s wheelbase additionally contributes to its 51 p.c/front-49 p.c rear weight distribution.

Lifting the two’s extensive entrance hood is shocking for what it doesn’t reveal: something mechanical or electrical. What’s there’s a small frunk (entrance trunk) roughly massive sufficient to suit a single carry-on suitcase. However like typical compact SUVs, the two can carry a pretty big load of cargo in again beneath its rear hatch—after you flip down the rear seat, after all.

The two did higher than many EVs on our freeway vary take a look at, delivering 190 miles of driving vary at a gentle 75 mph. However like nearly all EVs, its vary shrinks drastically if you pedal it laborious. We began one drive with 130 miles displaying on the instrument cluster’s extremely correct vary estimator. After flogging the two on our favourite native two-lanes after which blasting down a stretch of Interstate the vary meter dropped by 100 miles although we would travelled simply 63. We arrived again at residence base with solely 30 miles of vary displaying on the cluster display screen—and a robust need to recharge.

Since Polestar is the offspring of Volvo, you’d anticipate a give attention to security, and the two would not disappoint. The two introduces what Polestar claims is a brand new kind of air bag that provides further safety for front-seat passengers. Each of the entrance seats are fitted with the bag, which deploy ahead alongside the automobile’s centerline, between the front-seat passengers, to maintain them from being flung sideways (and into one another) within the occasion of a aspect impression.

If you strategy the two, it acknowledges you from the important thing fob or your cellphone (there’s an app for that) and units off a contented dance of a lightweight present. The 84 LED pixels within the headlights twinkle; the full-width taillight’s 288 LEDs race outward in sequence from the middle of the automobile; the Polestar brand—a stylized star meant to evoke the North Star—is projected on to the within of the glass roof just like the Bat-Sign (it is seen from outdoors as nicely); and a small model of the emblem positioned contained in the hole shifter additionally lights up.

The Polestar 2 comes customary with parent-company Volvo’s Superior Driver Help System (ADAS), a complete suite of security aids. A kind of security methods—probably Oncoming Lane Mitigation—unexpectedly twitched the steering wheel abruptly to the suitable for a break up second as we crested an increase in the midst of a nook whereas we had been motoring alongside sedately on a two-lane highway. We predict the system mistook a big tree throughout the highway for a automobile within the oncoming lane and tried to steer us out of bother, then realized its mistake instantaneously and launched the steering. It was over so rapidly that the two did not even change route. Nevertheless it was a massive shock. Fortunately, it by no means occurred once more.

The EPA’s mixed vary estimate, essentially the most distinguished EV-range determine the company publishes on its website, will be deceptive. That is why we take a look at the real-world freeway vary of the EVs we evaluation. The Polestar 2 with Efficiency bundle posted a 190-mile end result on our take a look at towards what we anticipate to be a 230-mile EPA mixed vary. That is solely 10 miles wanting a 2018 Tesla Mannequin three Efficiency that had an EPA vary of 310 miles. The truth is, that 190-mile determine ties it with the Audi e-tron for the perfect real-world freeway vary of any car that is not a Tesla.