Thought I'd share some experiences and journeys in a thread for anybody else who's looking as I found there's not a TON of information out there, hopefully this is interesting.
We have a Long Range Dual Motor MY23 and I ordered it with the tow bar to drag our caravan around.
I knew range would be dreadful with the caravan but remained optimistic we could tow with the EV rather than our Diesel car for some trips. I'm not sure I'm ready to tow the caravan on a journey where we'd need to make charging stops with it hitched up, as it'll limit options and I'm worried enough about relying on public charging (having never ever had to do an enroute charge yet in the 6 months I've had the car!)
The caravan went to Oxford and back over the last few days for a service so I monitored the range numbers to try and work out what is my real life towing range going to be.
I also tested out the suction-on towing mirrors (towsure suction towing mirror) https://amzn.to/3CBSLHm
![Image]()
(Proof
- quite happy with how the caravan sits behind the Polestar - looks pretty level.)
General experience
Driving the car with the caravan behind was really great. Apart from the obvious blind spot the car felt like normal, even one pedal drive felt standard so I never had to use the brakes. This felt weird as with the diesel car I really felt like the brakes were very different. I'm interested to see what it would be like on a long downhill section, as with the diesel car you can feel the brakes starting to get too hot, and have to manage that, I imagine this might be a thing of the past with that wasted heat all going into the battery.
Another time the car felt great was in stop-start traffic up a steep hill. Again this is something you have to think about usually - avoiding roll back and looking after your clutch - but in the polestar it just drove as normal - amazing. The light self-test is an awesome feature which I didn't know about when ordering the car, but it's such a good feature. It runs a pattern test on the lights so you can go to the back and watch the lights turn on one by one so it's quick and easy to do a full test without having to have two people shouting to eachother!
The reversing camera with the tow line display is also pretty good for hitching up too. It's off center, but not hard to accommodate for (and the line is accurate). Another way to avoid needing somebody assisting and giving confusing hand signals!
Range
The impact of the caravan is immediate and massive. I usually get around 29kwh/100mi (in recent weather), with the caravan I achieved more like 59kwh/100mi. This was up and down hills and doing 60mph on the motorway, with air con etc on in around 23c weather.
I imagine towing at 50mph might help, I'd like to find out by how much but that's for another time. There were parts of the journey where I caught up to a lorry and rather than overtake I went quite close behind and stuck with them at 55mph. It might have been slighly downhill on the motorway as well, but I did think the consumption improved - some of the low bars around the 5 mile mark on the consumption graph below were while I was drafting the truck so I'd definitly try this more to see if I can get more range!
![Image]()
Mirrors
The suction cup mirrors were OK. The fact you blind spot your normal mirror with the suction cup is a bit crap, but I love that as the attached to the glass, adjusting the tow mirror itself is easily done by using the controls for the mirror. I was an idiot and did not realise that they only sell them individually when I bought them at first, so remember to order 2 if you do. They seems to stick on OK, except at one point when I loosened one to slide it to a different position, either I didn't do it up again, or I should have re-moistened it, but if fell off - luckily not while driving.
I'm going to head out again for a weekend soon, only around a 100 mile round trip - so I will give an update if there is anything interesting to share! In summer we are heading somewhere 145 miles away, annoyingly I think just beyond our range and with not many good public charging options from my inittial look, so I might shamefully bring out the diesel for that!
We have a Long Range Dual Motor MY23 and I ordered it with the tow bar to drag our caravan around.
I knew range would be dreadful with the caravan but remained optimistic we could tow with the EV rather than our Diesel car for some trips. I'm not sure I'm ready to tow the caravan on a journey where we'd need to make charging stops with it hitched up, as it'll limit options and I'm worried enough about relying on public charging (having never ever had to do an enroute charge yet in the 6 months I've had the car!)
The caravan went to Oxford and back over the last few days for a service so I monitored the range numbers to try and work out what is my real life towing range going to be.
I also tested out the suction-on towing mirrors (towsure suction towing mirror) https://amzn.to/3CBSLHm
(Proof
- quite happy with how the caravan sits behind the Polestar - looks pretty level.)General experience
Driving the car with the caravan behind was really great. Apart from the obvious blind spot the car felt like normal, even one pedal drive felt standard so I never had to use the brakes. This felt weird as with the diesel car I really felt like the brakes were very different. I'm interested to see what it would be like on a long downhill section, as with the diesel car you can feel the brakes starting to get too hot, and have to manage that, I imagine this might be a thing of the past with that wasted heat all going into the battery
.Another time the car felt great was in stop-start traffic up a steep hill. Again this is something you have to think about usually - avoiding roll back and looking after your clutch - but in the polestar it just drove as normal - amazing. The light self-test is an awesome feature which I didn't know about when ordering the car, but it's such a good feature. It runs a pattern test on the lights so you can go to the back and watch the lights turn on one by one so it's quick and easy to do a full test without having to have two people shouting to eachother!
The reversing camera with the tow line display is also pretty good for hitching up too. It's off center, but not hard to accommodate for (and the line is accurate). Another way to avoid needing somebody assisting and giving confusing hand signals!
Range
The impact of the caravan is immediate and massive. I usually get around 29kwh/100mi (in recent weather), with the caravan I achieved more like 59kwh/100mi. This was up and down hills and doing 60mph on the motorway, with air con etc on in around 23c weather.
I imagine towing at 50mph might help, I'd like to find out by how much but that's for another time. There were parts of the journey where I caught up to a lorry and rather than overtake I went quite close behind and stuck with them at 55mph. It might have been slighly downhill on the motorway as well, but I did think the consumption improved - some of the low bars around the 5 mile mark on the consumption graph below were while I was drafting the truck so I'd definitly try this more to see if I can get more range!
Mirrors
The suction cup mirrors were OK. The fact you blind spot your normal mirror with the suction cup is a bit crap, but I love that as the attached to the glass, adjusting the tow mirror itself is easily done by using the controls for the mirror. I was an idiot and did not realise that they only sell them individually when I bought them at first, so remember to order 2 if you do. They seems to stick on OK, except at one point when I loosened one to slide it to a different position, either I didn't do it up again, or I should have re-moistened it, but if fell off - luckily not while driving.
I'm going to head out again for a weekend soon, only around a 100 mile round trip - so I will give an update if there is anything interesting to share! In summer we are heading somewhere 145 miles away, annoyingly I think just beyond our range and with not many good public charging options from my inittial look, so I might shamefully bring out the diesel for that!
