2024 Polestar 3 review: Electric SUV goes above and beyond Tesla Model Y

March 2, 2024March 5, 2024 Stephen Corby 8036 Views

Would a large-ish car company actually attempt to kill off the world’s most respected motoring journalists, and if it did, would it only take out the ones who’d said nice things about Tesla?

This is the question that plagued me as I arrived at the bright white edge of a frozen lake in Swedish Lapland to drive the all-new, hugely important Polestar 3, which weighs more than two tonnes, or surely more than enough to break through the ice and entomb me, frozen in a moment of coming up with yet another tortured metaphor about frozen testicles.

Polestar is hoping to move above and beyond its closest, fiercest and far more famous rival, Tesla, with the Polestar 3, and we’ve come a long way, in a lot of thick clothing, to see if it can pull it off.

2024 Polestar 3 price and equipment

The new Polestar 3 arrives with something of a heavy-walleted thud because it costs around twice as much as the company’s previous offering, a the sedan-shaped, Tesla Model 3-mirror image that is the Polestar 2.

Prices for the Polestar 3 start at $132,900 of the entry-level Long Range Dual Motor variant (how long range? A claimed 610km) and rise to $141,900 for the exciting Performance Pack version, which is the one you really want. Throw in some options, and you’re very much talking about a $150k-plus, Euro-premium level SUV.

Which is why Polestar was keen to push the point that Tesla is “a volume-selling brand like VW”, while it is keen to take on cars like the BMW iX, Audi Q8 E Tron and, rather gamely, Porsche’s Cayenne with the Polestar 3.

That money does get you a much improved, classy and spacious interior, genuinely lovely exterior design that seems to shrink the vehicle’s size down to something nice to look at, and an excellent 25-speaker Bowers & Wilkins audio system with of 1,610 Watts of power as standard.

Oh, and a list of safety gear that’s too long to go on with.

2024 Polestar 3: What we think

I don’t know about you, but when I’m invited to drive a heavy SUV on a frozen lake I assume that it would have to feature ice that’s at least four metres deep, maybe more, so it came as an even more chilling shock to hear the the lake we were driving on, outside JokkMokk, inside the Arctic Circle, was only ice down to 72cm.

This made me suspect an attempt on my life, or maybe they were just out to kill the other journalists and make me watch, as a warning. I was told not to worry, that the cracks I could see and the creaks I could hear were totally normal and that I should focus on staying warm enough to keep breathing, as it was currently -20C (a week earlier it had been -50C, so we were lucky).

This vast lake, which features three huge and hugely entertaining test tracks that are cut into it each year and then melt away again (but hopefully not today), is where Polestar has spent months of miserable weather, fettling and fiddling with the Polestar 3 to make it not only super Swedish safe, but, rather more surprisingly, hugely fun to drive, and in particular to drive completely sideways.

I tend to think of Swedes as cautious and careful, but it turns out the engineers behind Polestar are window-licking lunatics who believe that even family SUVs should be as capable of thrilling an enthusiastic driver as a rally car. Enormous time and love has been put into providing the Polestar 3 with the kind of steering that makes you smile (there are three adjustable levels for this, so if you like light and boring steering, you can have that too).

They also developed a Torque Vectoring Dual Clutch system that is no doubt very good for safety on dirt roads, as it shifts torque to the wheel where it’s needed most, and for efficiency, because it can shut off the rear motor entirely while cruising, becoming a FWD EV to save energy and extend driving range.

But, and this is clearly more important to the Polestar people I met, it can also be used to push the car into a bend more tightly at turn-in, or to help you drift and Scando-flick like a champ if you happen to be on a frozen lake.

They claim that this environment is a great test of a machine, and if it can succeed here it will win people over anywhere, and that the slow slides you end up doing here give engineers more time to analyse and adjust things like traction control software, but I’m telling you, they just really enjoy driving here, and making the Polestar 3 handle like a sports car. Hence its perfect 50-50 weight balance and a centre of gravity that matches the height of what they achieved in the original Polestar 1 sedan.

The seats are also bolted in as low as possible, lower than in most SUVs they claim, for a better, more fun driving position.

While a freezing environment like this was not a good place to test battery range (the Performance Pack I preferred is meant to offer 560km, we would have been lucky to get half that), it is a wonderful place to go driving, and to adjudge that this really is a car built to be enjoyed.

In its best settings, the Polestar 3 gives properly meaty steering feedback, it feels balanced, playful, and surprisingly not as heavy as I’d expected. While you’d expect torque delivery to be a problem on a no-grip surface like this (without studded winter tyres you’d barely go anywhere), with 910Nm and 380kW, at your disposal, the TVDC does a great job of giving you everything you require.

I also dip my very thick and wooly hat to the traction systems, which allow you to play to your heart’s content, but always step in to save you, just before you smash into a snow bank like a plonker

Polestar 3 2024: Verdict

I must say I enjoyed the Polestar 3, and the frozen lake, a whole lot more than I expected to, and I’m excited about driving it for real on our roads. And I can report that no-one died. Bonus.

SCORE: 4/5.

2024 Polestar 3 specifications:

Three-phase Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor at the front, and permanent synchronous motor at the rear for AWD.

Power and torque: 360kW/840Nm

Battery: 111kWh battery

Range: 610km or 540km

Efficiency: 19.8-21.8kWh per 100km

Price: $132,900-$141,900

Stephen Corby

Stephen is a former editor of both Wheels and Top Gear Australia magazines and has been writing about cars since Henry Ford was a boy. Initially an EV sceptic, he has performed a 180-degree handbrake turn and is now a keen advocate for electrification and may even buy a Porsche Taycan one day, if he wins the lottery. Twice.