Had a test drive in San Francisco yesterday — they brought the car to us. Great communication beforehand, including email reminders and a text message from a Polestar team member about an hour before the drive to confirm the time and address (the associate, K-Maas, was awesome throughout). Car was ready outside before we were, and we definitely caught a couple of curious passers-by giving it a look. It’s going to be fun having a car that’s a bit of a different electric vehicle amongst the sea of standard-issue Model 3’s around here.
Got a quick walkaround and a spray of hand sanitizer, and with that, myself, my wife, and K-Maas were off for a 30-minute drive. Our tester was dressed in Thunder with 20” shoes but no Performance Package, Charcoal WeaveTech interior. Yes, Thunder does look lighter in person. We didn’t spend much time playing with the infotainment system aside from changing up steering feel and testing out the stereo, as we’d spent some time with the car previously in showroom settings and wanted to focus on how she felt to drive. At one point I did use ‘hey Google’ to enter our home address just to see how nav worked, and it was by far the easiest address entry I’ve ever accomplished in a car (even through my face mask).
I drove through our local streets, got a couple of highway miles in, and then wound the car through some San Francisco neighborhood hills (around Bernal, if you know SF) before heading back for my wife to have a go, and overall we were super impressed. Our current vehicles are an Audi S3 and Lexus IS250 F-Sport (Polestar is replacing the Lexus) — I’d compare steering feel more closely with the Audi, and overall heft and suspension feel more on the Lexus side (not a complaint on California roads — I like a comfortable sport sedan). The car is definitely drive-by-wire, so as multiple reviews have stated, steering feels a little disconnected from the road but accurate and nicely weighted, with a good thickness to the steering wheel. One-pedal driving was super easy to get used to, even for my wife who initially thought she would be setting up her profile to react more like an ICE but fell in love with one-pedal. And I dare anyone to accelerate in one of these and not smile: punching it in a performance EV is just too much fun.
Little things good and bad: I thought turning radius was excellent, and it was easy to navigate tighter spaces and roundabouts. Rear visibility is decidedly not great, but with all the cameras and sensors and whatnot, not especially a concern. Volume knob is indeed a touch awkward as you have to reach over the shifter, but usually I’m doing these things from the steering wheel. Glass roof really shows its worth once you get outside the showroom — can’t recall the last time I really enjoyed riding in the back of a car before, but it made all the difference. It was a hot day here (for SF) but I felt more heat coming through the side windows than the roof glass. Driver display includes a more minimal navigation display when not in full map view that I like (indicates your next move, including simplified lane illustrations). Car felt planted throughout and starts/stops were super smooth without the “kick” of an engine block or tank of gas responding to momentum changes. Was able to come to a full stop on a pretty steep incline and just hang out that way without having to sit on any pedals, which was neat. After our test as the car sadly drove away, I saw that the rear LED blade was a visible glowing accent even in full sun and will look pretty distinctive day or night. Threw my (i)phone on the wireless charger and it worked great (little charging icon shows up on the center display even if the phone is not paired) with Apple’s clear case on the phone. Super convenient. WeaveTech, as others have stated, is in some strange place between a nice denim and a wetsuit but more luxe than most textile interiors and seems like it will hold up well.
Did not get to test out adaptive cruise / lane keep as I am not a Volvo expert yet and didn’t want to take eyes off the road to mash unfamiliar buttons etc. I’m sure it’ll be great to have in traffic but otherwise I generally enjoy having the wheel.
Overall, a very well put together package and I came away confident in our choices and ready to pull the trigger on delivery. Happy to answer any questions I can about anything I might’ve missed in the highlights here.
