The 2023 Polestar 2 Long Range Single Motor is a simple yet elegant package that shows a refreshing level of refinement when it comes to an EV. It’s a vehicle that will have you instantly taken back by the aggressive styling and wide set squared looks.
Its unique look is somewhere between a sedan and hatch, but it’s not a coupe. A convoy of these in black, with black wheels, would have you wondering if it’s the Federal Police coming to stop the next super villain, such is its on-road profile.
If there isn’t a Polestar 2 in the new Transformers movie due out this year, we reckon the film makers have dropped the ball. Now back to this electric vehicle. The car looks big and sits at a nice height off the ground.
The long rear window provides a sneak peak to the 405-litre boot space that features some cool luggage spacers to ensure your fruit and veg doesn’t do a runner from the bag. There is even an extra smaller compartment underneath the boot floor.
If that isn’t enough, you also have a 35-litre front trunk space at your disposal. Sitting in the Polestar you feel tucked in. The seats are power adjustable and have lumbar support, and yes, they fold pretty much flat for a nap, should you need one.
The cabin is minimalistic and environmentally friendly. There’s no leather, with plenty of vegan friendly components instead, which give you are sense of premium quality. The interior design looks unreal too.
Materials and fabrics across the dash mark quite easily but are impressively quick to clean with a simple wipe over. The centre console is not an advent calendar of functionality either – it’s all about simple, with a beautifully designed Polestar shifter as the centre piece.
Behind that is a single volume dial laced with stainless steel. There’s wireless phone charging and two USB-C ports at the ready too. Only the defrost air con settings are button operated, while everything else is controlled from the 11.5-inch infotainment screen.
There are also two USB-C ports in the rear, under the air con vents, for your passengers. Under the arm rest up front you’ll find two cup holders to complement the bottle holders in each front door.
The steering wheel is nice, feels solid and sports decent sized buttons. In a nice touch, that infotainment system feels like a modern-day smartphone, with a main app window to find most things. It’s split into four widget panels, showcasing your most used functions.
For this writer, that was maps, music, range and the phone. While you can connect via Android Auto and Apple CarPlay too, we found the built-in apps good enough. There’s plenty of smart tech on-board, including Google Maps.
The global tech giant’s navigation system has been incorporated into the digital instrument cluster, making getting where you need to go an absolute breeze. The air con settings display at the bottom of the screen for ease of access as well.
One pedal driving can be activated from within the infotainment setup, which utilises KERS for braking regeneration. This has a Low and Standard setting, with the latter being very aggressive. There’s a creep mode too, which is essentially an auto hold feature.
Three steering settings are offered too, including Low, Normal and Firm. We found the former the most useful in day-to-day operation. There’s an ESC Sport mode for when you really want to shake things loose on the backroads.
The 78kWh battery has a claimed range between 515km to 551km but in real world testing was more like 480km to 500km. But while that’s important, the Polestar 2 is most impressive in the way it charges.
At no point did we need to go find a fast charger during our week of testing. Our biggest day of driving saw charge down as low as 28 per cent (Saturday). We put it on charge at 7pm. By the time we left for the shops at 10.15am Sunday – 93 per cent charge.
That means we put roughly 65 per cent of charge back into the car in 15 hours. That’s impressive. It also means you could easily run your local errands all week and only charge it once a week, based on those figures.
The battery/charge management system is easy to use too, and allows you to control how much charge you’d like to put back in, and what time it should hit that magic number. It’s a level of functionality that allows you to plan life with your EV.
The 170kW of power and 330Nm of torque spawns a 0-100km/h time of 7.4 seconds. The instant pickup offered by an electric vehicle will give give you a bit a giggle and a seat throw. If you want to go harder, there’s a performance model on offer.
The 2023 Polestar 2 Long Range Single Motor hits the tarmac from $71,940 plus on-roads. Our test vehicle came with the Pilot Lite Pack, which adds pilot assist steering for cruise control, cross traffic alert with brake control, and a 360 degree parking camera.
It also drops in auto dimming mirrors and front fog lights. The Plus Pack was also included on our vehicle, giving us a Harman Kardon sound system, panoramic glass roof, air quality software and WeaveTech seats.
Additionally, that pack adds a heat pump that that harvests the wasted-on board thermal energy to help heat the cabin, heated steering wheel, heated rear seats, tinted rear windows and the wireless phone charging setup.
With around $9,000 in add-ons, the drive away price hit $86,030 according to the Polestar website. The Polestar 2 shows a simple yet elegant approach making the original elements of a car exceptional, instead of trying to distract you with gimmicks.
While we’re sure funky extras like completely automatic parking or self driving will come in the future, it’s a really enjoyable car to drive, as it stands today. The price is a little up there, but having spent a week with it, we reckon it’s worth it.
The design inside and out, is on point. The materials used are all environmentally and sustainably focused. The performance is enough to keep you happy, and the range and charging capability will limit any anxiety.
It has a 5-year unlimited kilometre warranty, along with 5-years roadside assist, and a 5-year or 100,000km complimentary service plan. The battery warranty is 8-years or 160,000km. Polestar expects the batteries to last for the life of the vehicle.
If you’re keen on one and need finance, talk to CreditOne.
Our test vehicle was provided by Polestar Australia. To find out more about the 2023 Polestar 2 Long Range Single Motor, contact your local Polestar dealer.
Does the car have a “transmission” tunnel hump through the centre? If the car doesn’t have a completely flat floor, it’s using the floor pan of an old ICE car. Compromised suspension and space.
Hey John, you are correct the platform does originate from an ICE car borrowed from Volvo which means it has a transmission tunnel however it is not bad compared to a lot of ICE cars today so yes slight compromise for the middle seat passenger. I can confirm the suspension is in no way compromised by this. the ride and body roll was as good it not better than a lot of EV cars out today.