Goodwood Test: 2021 Polestar 2 Review

If it looks like a Volvo, feels like a Volvo but sounds nothing like a Volvo – it’s a Polestar. Once upon a time Polestar just made Volvos faster (remember the tremendous V60 Polestar?) but now it has struck out on its own, as an electric car company of the future, but one very sure of its roots in the past. The naming system is simple: this is the second ground-up car from Polestar, so it’s the Polestar 2. The Polestar 1, in case you missed it, was a limited-run hybrid coupe for £150,000, which looked incredible but had some mixed reviews.

The Polestar 2 looks like a very cool Volvo, one that spent its university years studying abroad and has come back wearing a turtleneck and round glasses. It feels a little like the blank sheet they had for design just had “minimalism” written on it and the whole team went off for an incredibly expensive beer. But... it works very well. One of the nicest things is that the Polestar 2 is a saloon (alright, it’s a fastback) in the most traditional of senses. It’s got four doors, a boot sticking out of the back and a bonnet at the front with no engine underneath. Despite being a throwback to the older school of car making, it still feels fresh to see a saloonish body on an EV. The majority of major production EVs have been SUVs or hatchbacks, and if they haven’t they have taken the more swooping coupe-style lines of something like a Taycan or Tesla Model 3.

Up front the Volvo stylings extend to the lights, which keep the sort of Thor’s Hammer design seen on modern cars from the parent company, and a big grille across the middle reminiscent of the old Volvo P1800 (a car recently electrified by Cyan Racing). At the back the Polestar 2 all goes a bit more bespoke, with a rather fetching across-the-middle design for the rear lights – lights which dance a merry jig across the boot when you unlock the car. In between the Polestar 2 is saloon as you expect, except it does bow slightly to the modern wish for higher rides, with a slight lifted look and some classic Volvo XC plastic bumpers and arches. And while I’ve written Volvo more than I have Polestar in this section it manages to look like its own thing, while retaining some pleasing familiarity. Which is good for Polestar, as a new company they need to appeal to existing car buyers as well as new, and Volvo’s current design language is not to be sniffed at.

Let’s start with slightly shocking fact. The Polestar 2 (there is only one power option for now) is quicker to 62mph than a rear-wheel-drive Porsche Taycan, and it costs about £20,000 less as standard. That is impressive enough on its own, and is because the Polestar 2 has a  204PS (150kW) motor on each axle. That 408PS (300kW) total, combined with 660Nm (487lb ft) of torque is enough to propel the Polestar 2 to the magic 100km/h (62mph) mark in 4.7 seconds (the Taycan takes more than five), despite needing to shift over 2.1 tonnes of Swedish engineering around. Top speed is 127mph, with the dual motor makeup meaning a 50/50 split of torque between the two axles. When you really hit the throttle hard the acceleration is truly startling, and with this car on the optional Öhlins dampers there is very little in the way of unfortunate lurch, even with so much mass being shifted.

But don’t let that make you think the Polestar 2 is a sportscar. Four hundred horsepower is a truly phenomenal amount in a saloon, but it’s becoming pretty standard in EVs. While you will truly rocket away from almost anything else in a line there’s really no hiding that 2.1 tonnes when you need to shift left or right. That’s not to say it’s a rolling mess, but you really do feel that you are arguing that mass around corners and the steering is not going to provide a massive amount in the way of feedback. Stick to enjoying the Polestar as a rapid car rather than a proper performance machine and everything will be well.

Those Öhlins dampers – fancy adjustable dual flow things – are part of the optional Performance Pack, which adds 20-inch forged alloys, impressive four-calliper Brembo brakes and the snazzy gold valve caps and seatbelts. As much as we love the belts, I would probably avoid the Performance Pack. It really doesn’t seem to add much, and the adjustment to the dampers can only be done on a ramp (rather than in the Polestar 1 where it was under the bonnet, the adjustment is on the suspension on the 2). The standard settings are a little too firm at times, although nothing to the form of overkill, but I just don’t imagine many would ever adjust the dampers. I actually spent time missing the ability to change into a comfort mode on the screen. If you lose the Performance Pack then there’s no difference in straight line speed, so you’ll still have yourself an incredibly rapid, comfortable, car.

What is good in terms of adjustment is one pedal driving. Now prevalent on lots of electric cars there’s three levels of adjustment to the system, off, low or normal, allowing a nice array of changes to the amount of regen depending on your driving status. You can also adjust the steering feel, with light being best for in town manoeuvring and firm being the only one we’d use day to day as standard just feels a bit light. Both are adjusted with absolute simplicity on the screen, so it does just make you wish you could also change the dampers from the driving seat.

This is another place the Polestar 2 absolutely shines. The interior, like the outside, is nothing of a particularly wild new-thinking flashy nature, but it does everything simply and in a beautiful-to-look-at manner. Our car came with a wonderful light grey interior – which matched the Performance Pack’s yellow seatbelts perfectly – and it felt like an airy place to be, even without the  massive panoramic roof that just floods the cabin with light. The best bit about the interior, oddly, is the way the touchscreen has been integrated. It stands proud, all 15 inches of it, from the main dash, but sat into the centre console like it’s a tablet in a dock. The display itself is also excellent, crisp and clear and easy to use with almost everything designed with the minimal Polestar look in mind. While there are gripes with the touchscreen (which we will come to in a second) it’s also worth noting that the instrument screen – 12.3 inches – is also excellent. It manages to purvey all the information you need and expect, while still looking completely fresh.

The interior is spacious, with plenty of legroom for a fully grown man and his camera equipment in the back, even behind a six-foot driver, and a decent 440 combined litres of boot space (405 at the back, 35 in the frunk).

Pretty much everything is contained within that giant screen, and by everything we mean it. There is a volume control, the gearstick, hazard lights and controls for screen heating on the centre console and that is it. Instantly annoying (as I have mentioned before) but not insurmountable. The main gripe is that the moment you chose another menu the climate controls disappear – they can be returned with a swipe up, but not through some simple button. Which is odd when there’s a single button to turn off the traction control – a real novelty in 2021. However, the Polestar 2 is equipped with Google Assistant, just like your Android phone if you have one, in fact exactly the same system. While not as quick as just turning a knob to change the heat, its actually excellent once you get used to it. After a short amount of time with the car I found myself asking Google to do almost everything, taking away the need to hunt around in menus. While I would prefer some buttons it is a very good compromise. The screen also comes with a few other trinkets from the world of app development. Spotify is automatically installed, and rather than paying for a more bespoke system Polestar use Google maps for Sat-Nav – a system that has worked excellently on a phone for years, so it makes sense it should be fine here. In fact the simple Google integrations are one of the better things about the screen.

And that’s not all. With only one or two spec options available for now (more Polestar 2 versions are incoming), pretty much all restricted to the exterior of the car, the Polestar 2 comes absolutely loaded with tech, another totally refreshing change in a world of options lists. In fact the list is far too long to reel off here in full, but includes heated steering wheel, heated seats, a panoramic roof, the smaller 19-inch alloys, all the tech in the screen, including the Google integration, adaptive cruise control, a 360-degree parking camera, collision warning (which it has to be said is a little too eager to cut in), a Harman Kardon speaker system and DAB digital radio.

The battery system is a 400V 78kWh unit, meaning about 292 miles on the WLPT standard. We found that was probably closer to 200 when used normally, with a few hard accelerations thrown in, because really you’re not going to be able to resist that.

The Polestar 2 feels like a bit of a watershed moment; a relatively affordable, stylish, family EV from a company that isn’t Tesla. The 2 looks great, especially inside, is completely vegan and feels like a car you could actually live with. It also comes gimmick-free – it doesn’t have a whoopie cushion mode, you can’t play your N64 through the screen and rather than cameras it has beautiful rimless mirrors. Instead it does what it was designed to do, be a comfortable, spacious car that turns heads and feels like something you would like to own. We would forgo the Performance Pack, although be aware that we have not driven a car on the standard dampers, so test drive it before deciding. The integration of Google also feels like an excellent choice; with the likes of Volkswagen and Mercedes in-house made voice systems still feeling a bit clunky, using a system that is well honed and works makes you see that voice control does have a future if done properly. If you were looking at a Tesla, a 3 Series an A4 or the equivalent, do have a glance at the Polestar before you put a deposit down, it may be the better choice.