2022 Polestar 2 Single Motor Review: a Quiet Tesla Rival

• The Polestar 2 is the primary critical manufacturing automobile from Polestar, a brand new electrical automobile model. 
• It is a incredible sedan that delivers elegant tech, hanging seems, and 270 miles of vary. 
• The 2022 Polestar 2 Lengthy Vary Single Motor we drove got here out to $48,400. 

I used to be creeping throughout the George Washington Bridge, driving residence from a weekend upstate, when somebody waved at me from the subsequent lane over. I figured they had been complimenting the 2022 Polestar 2 I used to be driving, so I gave a thumbs up and moved alongside. 

They caught up once more, gesturing madly, so I rolled down the window. 

“Hey! What sort of automobile is that?” they shouted over the din of 14 lanes of site visitors crossing between New Jersey and New York. 

“It is a Polestar!” I yelled again. 

“Lonestar?” 

“Polestar!”

“What?!”

“POLE! STAR!,” I screamed as clearly as attainable earlier than rolling up my window and persevering with on my method. I’ve no clue in the event that they acquired the message. 

Tim Levin/Insider

You’ll be able to’t precisely blame individuals for being curious. In spite of everything, Polestar is a comparatively younger model, and its debut electrical sedan does not have the badging you’d see on most automobiles — just some cryptic logos and tiny stickers with some extra particulars. 

The shortage of distinguished branding is an surprising selection for Polestar, which continues to be attempting to construct title recognition and carve a slice of the rising marketplace for electrical autos. Furthermore, the Polestar 2 is a incredible electrical sedan that extra individuals ought to know exists. It is filled with cool tech, nice to drive, will get nice vary, and stands out from the rising sea of Tesla Mannequin 3s and Mannequin Ys.

Tim Levin/Insider

The fundamentals 

Polestar is a brand new electrical automobile model that spun out of Volvo in 2017. It is collectively owned by Volvo and the Swedish agency’s father or mother firm, Chinese language auto large Geely. 

The Polestar 2 is, shockingly, Polestar’s second automobile. The Polestar 1, a $155,000 high-performance hybrid launched in 2019, is just offered in very restricted numbers, so you would be excused for by no means having heard of it. As Polestar’s first mass-produced automobile, the two is the more true take a look at of whether or not the model can stake its flag within the crowded and aggressive EV house. Like a Tesla, clients purchase it instantly from the corporate on-line. 

Tim Levin/Insider

The 2022 Polestar 2 will get extra vary and a less expensive base worth than the inaugural 2021 mannequin. There are two variations to select from:

• Lengthy Vary Single Motor ($45,900): Comes with 270 miles of Environmental Safety Company-rated vary and 231 horsepower. Choices embrace a luxurious bundle and a bundle of driver-assistance options. 
• Lengthy Vary Twin Motor ($49,900): Comes with 249 miles of vary, 408 horsepower, and provides the choice for a efficiency bundle with upgraded brakes, suspension, and wheels. 

The one-motor mannequin Polestar loaned me had an $1,200 paint possibility and got here out to $48,400, together with a $1,300 vacation spot price. 

Tim Levin/Insider

What stands out: Putting seems and shockingly intuitive tech

From its chunky form and chiseled angles to its fastback roofline and SUV-like trip peak, the Polestar 2 seems funky. Whereas Car and Driver could deride the two’s styling as “indecipherable,” I occur to essentially dig it. The two makes itself identified, however in a decidedly unflashy, subdued form of method. 

Its minimal inside is cozy and upscale, that includes each an 11-inch central display screen and a 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster for the motive force. It feels crabby to say that vast in-car touchscreens such because the one discovered within the Polestar 2 frustrate me, but it surely’s the reality. It isn’t that I am afraid of change. I simply really feel like we acquired it proper the primary time with buttons, knobs, and switches. Why reinvent the wheel? 

Tim Levin/Insider

However the Polestar 2’s infotainment system — intuitive, crisp, and impeccably designed — gained me over utterly. All the most trafficked settings are solely a few faucets away, not hidden in a nesting doll of menus. Crucial buttons are massive and simple to faucet whereas driving. All the pieces seems astonishingly clear and easy. 

The driving force display screen foregoes any flashy animations and simply exhibits you simply the fundamentals — velocity, cruise management, battery stage, turn-by-turn instructions, and so on. — clearly in opposition to a black backdrop. 

The Polestar 2 is the primary automobile to make use of Google’s working system, so it comes with Google Maps and the voice-activated

Google Assistant

inbuilt. Plot a route and the automobile tells you, with nice accuracy, what battery share you will be at if you arrive — and after the journey residence. A Vary Assistant app additional calms range anxiety by displaying how one’s driving fashion and use of local weather controls influence power consumption in actual time.

Driving the Polestar 2

Tim Levin/Insider

If you’d like a extra thrilling driver’s automobile, it’s possible you’ll be higher off with the all-wheel-drive, dual-motor model, which claims a four-second 0-to-60-mph time and presents an elective efficiency bundle. However the cheaper model continues to be enjoyable to drive. 

Delivering the snappy, fast acceleration intrinsic to electrical automobiles, the single-motor Polestar 2 leaps from a stoplight or skirts round a slow-moving truck with ease. Total, the automobile feels agile, planted, and experiences minimal body roll. Take your foot off of the throttle, and the automobile will — like most EVs — sluggish itself down with out use of the brake pedal to seize power and feed it again into the battery pack in a course of referred to as “regenerative braking.”

There aren’t drive modes to select from, however regenerative braking and different parts of the expertise will be configured to a driver’s liking. You’ll be able to dial in your most popular steering really feel (from gentle to heavy) or mimic the gas-car expertise by having the automobile creep ahead if you take your foot off the brake.  

Tim Levin/Insider

Promising a wholesome 270 miles of EPA-rated vary, the single-motor 2 is a ‘tweener, providing extra mileage than many rivals however lower than others. Tesla continues to be the vary king at this worth level, with the Mannequin 3 Lengthy Vary touring an estimated 358 miles per cost. 

What falls brief: Commonplace security options

I used to be shocked to study that my take a look at automobile did not have blind-spot monitoring or adaptive cruise management, each of which come customary on a slew of latest autos nowadays, particularly higher-end fashions. A number of options do come customary, like collision avoidance and lane holding, however you need to purchase the $3,200 Pilot bundle to get a broader array of driver aids. 

This part is the shortest of all. That is as a result of I actually loved the Polestar 2 and located virtually no downsides. 

Tim Levin/Insider

Our impressions: Keep watch over Polestar

Polestar is not as loud, well-known, or hyped-up as a few of the different new electric-car firms cropping up. I would enterprise a guess that extra individuals have heard of Rivian, the buzzy, Amazon-backed startup, or Lucid, the luxury-EV agency run by Tesla’s former chief engineer, than Volvo’s new subsidiary. (A spokesperson chalked up the two’s refined branding to the corporate’s “Scandinavian design ethos.”)  

However Polestar is quietly doing what neither of these firms have managed but: promote lots of automobiles. The agency moved 29,000 autos final 12 months and goals to greater than double that in 2022. An SUV referred to as the Polestar 3 is on the best way. 

Polestar has flown beneath the radar for years. However with a product as glorious because the Polestar 2 available on the market, I can not think about that anonymity will final lengthy.