Polestar Forum banner

So Frustrated with the Infotainment System

6K views 23 replies 21 participants last post by  CarGuyEddie 
#1 ·
I too was excited when I bought the car. Nice styling, drives great. But the entertainment system? What a peice of shit. First couple days the map screen was smearing halfway on the screen. It seems to alwayts turn off the radio when going in reverse, people seem to think thats a safety feature, but i don't buy it. Also, if you hop in, and go in reverse the camera doesnt always turn on, so you either have to wait, or just turn around and reverse old school.

So I started using carplay. Just a much better system overall. Sucks that you have to plug the cord in to use carplay, but anyway... Yesterday I had to go 20 min, and tried to plug in and start car play, but got nothing but a black screen. Nothing, unplug, plug back in, nothing. So I tried to switch back to android bluetooth music. And it tells me I have to unplug from carplay and use bluetooth, but I wasn't plugged in anymore? So here I am driving, trying to play some damn music, and no matter what I do, carplay shows black, and bluetooth music refuses to play thinking car play is active. Im gonna have an accident so I give up and listen to the radio instead. I finally get to my destination, and at this point i want to "restart" the system but I have no idea how to so i shut the car off using the system. 30 minutes later I get back in the car, and it starts all over again. No carplay.

And the radio! OMG, i just want to get in my car, reverse down my driveway and drive to work with the same station that was playing. Sometimes the radio comes on, turns off (Possibly in reverse) and then stays off. Sometimes it comes back on. sometimes, it "forgets" the station and starts at 88.9 or whatever the first station is. Prertty diisapointing that a device like a radio doesnt work reliably. No Pandora in Android. Surprised by that.

The list goes on. Seems like its updating and working differently every week, but Im still on software 2.2? Im about ready to drop it back at the dealer and file a lemon lawsuit on them.
 
See less See more
#2 ·
Yeah it can be annoying, but most issues are resolved by a restart which is safe to do while driving, just hold the line at the bottom bezel for 20 seconds and it’ll reboot.

My Audi used to lower the volume when reversing and I was used to it, my Polestar does nothing (maybe it’s a U.S. “feature”?) and made me realise how stupid it is as and disabled it in the Audi too!

The Radio is terrible in general I never use it…
 
#3 ·
yeah... Some of that is user selectable, like the volume of the audio vs. the various alert/system sounds.

I would recommend going to the Camera (the camera icon upper left) and if you touch the screen, a gear icon appears in the upper right. hit that icon and it will give you a few options, one is volume of the park assist. I've set mine to 0, and I don't have issues with the audio turning off in reverse, so maybe its related

I, too have noticed that CarPlay will sometimes give me a black screen. The restart (hold the line at the bottom bezel for 20 seconds and it’ll reboot) usually fixes it. Overall, Im not a fan of CarPlay, except the music. It does, to me, sound better than using bluetooth, but I guess I could play music through a USB device without using Carplay, but I haven't looked in to that.

as for the Radio, almost never use it, so I haven't had the issues you have. but I do have a favorites list, and that seems to keep thing more consistent.
I use the SAT radio a LOT, like most of the time, and that for me has always stayed on the last channel
 
#4 ·
It sounds like you have a lemon or your car is possessed @RuffStuff. The infotainment is not perfect but is far far away from a piece of sh*t, especially compared to a lot of other cars. It's usually a plus point in nearly every review I've read/viewed from car journalists. I have to occasionally reboot mine, maybe once every couple of months? Never used or needed to use CarPlay.
 
#5 ·
You have to be careful with reviews, some of them date back to when the car was released and 2 years is a long time with technology. My feeling is Polestar, at least with the 2, is stuck with a 2019/20 system and others are moving on quickly.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JRB_89
#6 ·
My infotainment has a pretty terrible issue (boots up from cold every time) but what I can say, from the loaner, is that when it "works like it's supposed to" it's awesome. That's what the warranty is for. Let them fix it. I won't be satisfied until it's "the way it should be" so they can just keep letting us use this loaner. If your issues are repeatable and not fixed by a reboot (as previously suggested) let PS fix it/figure it out IMO.
 
#7 ·
Well, the radio glitch is annoying. The Auto-resume play never worked in my car. The reverse camera coming on slowly and sometimes turning off while you already starting backing out is too annoying. In my opinion, I would be just wasting time booking a service call, because its software bugs shops cannot do anything about. They would just reset the heck out of it and call it a day.

If stuff like this makes you think lemon, I think P2 is probably not for you….and I say it knowing and fully expecting that these kind of issues might potentially never get resolved in my car. Basically, they will stay for life …😂 … luckily, while it is certainly annoying, I would not even think about getting rid of my car. Way more upside in this car for me personally … but I understand that is not how everyone else will feel about tens of these little glitches and problem…. 🤷🏼‍♂️
 
#8 ·
Really not a lemon case I'd say, besides shouldn't you give them an opportunity to fix it? Did you talk to support and got it booked in?

Radio? What is that thing? I can't say I listen to it anymore, but besides we have DAB here. My car doesn't suffer from silence when reversing, hardstyle is still being played at volume 11...
 
#11 ·
For those of you with CarPlay issues.. My authentic Apple charging cable did not work. I got the braided Belkin cable and have had no issues.

 
#12 ·
Looks like Google Maps, Google Assistant, Spotify, and android system WebView all updated within the past week. If OP or others are seeing glitchiness I wonder if an update didn’t take properly and a few head unit (home button) resets are needed, and/or one of those needs to be uninstalled/reinstalled.
 
  • Like
Reactions: aramk
#18 ·
Since they rolled out an update to Google Maps this week (reducing the directional instructions to a smaller black rectangle), navigation has been a real pain.

I’ve had issues with responsiveness, had Google maps lock up, and yesterday had it continually recalculating and switching between two m route even though we were on course.

Is there a good way to report issues or bugs to either Polestar or Google?
 
#15 ·
Sounds like the OP has a faulty infotainment unit. I was reading this while sitting at an EA charger, and since I usually don't listen to the radio I had to try this out right away when I backed out of the space after charging was complete. My radio does NOT cut out when going in reverse, and neither do any of the other audio apps as far as I am aware (in particular YTM, which I use most often).
 
#16 ·
Neither does mine. But it does some weird things, yesterday I drove home and I played some Internet radio. I turned it off before arriving, but when I started washing the car and opened the doors it started playing some (random) channel on its own... I hope this is just a bug in the radio app (open radio), as most AAOS apps are really buggy, e.g. TuneIn does not work at all.
 
#17 ·
Sorry about your issues. I am not sure what state you are in but I have gone through the lemon law process in the past with another car. It is not as simple as, the infotainment system doesn't work, to lemon law a car. I am not even sure a bad head unit will qualify. Even if it does, you have to give them a chance to fix it. Three chances actually. And the car needs to be in service for x number of days. I would definitely recommend you Google the lemon law for your state.

Good luck.
 
#21 ·
I don’t know if it’s new or not but I was surprise when getting off the freeway on the right it did not direct me to the correct lane of the two on the right I could have taken.

Similarly on the exit near my home, and coincidentally one to take to get to Apple’s main “spaceship” campus in Cupertino, the freeway has two lanes on the right to take that further subdivide into 4 lanes—two for turning left and two for going right. You must choose which of the two lanes initially to take otherwise you will be forced yo take a wrong turn. Google does not tell you which to take and always directs you to the right most (which is what you take to enter the Apple campus) of the two lanes which is wrong for me.

It’s not like Google does not map this area as the constantly are always running their mapping cars in the area.

I have no such issues when I use Apple Maps in CarPlay. All in all, considering the issues when Apple Maps when first introduced, currently it is far superior to Googles and I’d say by a fair factor.
 
#22 ·
I am also surprised that on the main dash, when the directions show to turn right or left, that it doesn’t show the street name or exit number (they do on the center tablet.) considering the amount of space available when not using the map view on the dash it is surprising. I think Polestar went too minimalistic but that’s one man’s opinion.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top