Had my test drive today. I was expecting issues from software side, therefore excluded those from consideration set with assumption that all will be fixed before October delivery.
I was interested on the process Polestar had therefore I controlled my eagerness and already digested information from various sources.
Polestar´s co-pilot had a good process from first setting the scene finding where am I coming (familiar with EV and typical EV settings). Also explained well current state ie beta software, missing BLIS and automatic lane change. We went through seating position adjustments, mirrors and HUD. I preferred setting one pedal driving off while I was interested in how blended braking would feel (disappointing in my current MB EQE).
Test drive started with an unexpected clitch coming from seat belt monitoring without reason, He did re-boot while driving with long press of play button which initially did not solve the problem and we decided to go back to switch the test car while bling warning sounds would have been super annoying to listen. Yet while turning back to Space, warning went off.
With very limited time available focused on my most important decision making points which are cabin and drive comfort on motorway speeds .
Me being 187 cm cabin comfort was very good, seating position very good no issues with a console giving pressure to my right leg which quite often happens. Plenty of space.
For us the back seat space is not important while rarely have passengers and the small parasites we have managed to move out from home already. Have you ever heard someone saying that too much space has been used on back seat, I have not. Yet for me it seems as a missed opportunity and would prefer finding rear seating adjustable length wise allowing more luggage space when back seat legroom is not in focus. Sure, offering this would yield higher production cost and most likely also is segmenting/brand decision.
I have been wondering why Pilot-assist is missing distance to car in front -options. It seems that the car decides the distance according the speed. This is fine for me outside of winter season. I usually have short distance set on in city and medium in motorway. Yet in winter time I prefer using long distance when on icy/snowy roads with friction winter tyres. This is one setting what I left missing from Polestar 3.
I had my high hopes in terms of cabin noise levels. On fresh tarmac it proved to run like a dream. In city traffic it is quiet but when running on motorway speed 125 km/h on Finnish coarse road raped by winter conditions and studded tyres the cabin noise was okay but not best in class. Sorry for being an engineer but I had to have some tangible comparison point therefore measured the noise. My comparison point was current EQE which makes on same road in same speed average 77 decibels on 20” (acoustic foam filled), Polestar did the same on 22”. Ex-Velar, which I adored, did 74dB average on 21” and that was the best in class comparison point for me while being “similar” shaped car though burning diesel. Is 3 dB difference much, well it is like doubling the sound pressure. Still I did not perceive specific irritating noises in this short test drive. I wonder whether running on coarse roads (constant rumble from tyre) would benefit active noise cancelling of MY25 having microphone in each wheel arch, while constant type of noise can be cancelled. My MY24 will be on 21” so expecting the noise to be a bit lower than with test car.
+25 Celsius sunny day, the ultimate decision maker of our family (using brain not emotions like I am) sitting on back seat during the test drive missed the roof curtain, not due temperature but because was forced to use sunglasses. In front seat I was fine. Windscreen also blocked front radiation well.
Steering wheel button functions: I was positively surprised how those worked, made sense to me. The only negative comment comes from missing? resume-function on cruise. This is a function which I am forced to use quite often. Makes no sense to me that left side has only +/- for speed. Makes no sense to have to use the right stalk which adopts the current speed followed with use of left +button to adjust back to earlier cruise speed. One button click, Please. Sure, if only my reptilian brain would trust the Pilot function and not to brake when someone is cutting into my lane in high speed then I would not need the resume button. I assume it is easier for a coder to make that functionality than me unlearning old habit. Pretty Please Polestar, concentrate first delivering well functioning first delivery software before adding my wish into current development sprint.
During the test drive Pilot assistance was acting up, it went off three times without reason with a warning tone and text on screen, expecting that to belong into known beta-issues and to be fixed before delivery.
I trusted B&W to be good (coming from Burmeister) therefore did not want to torture co-pilots with my excellent choice of music.
My engineer reptilian brain went nuts with perceived tilted installation of driver´s screen, caused by console stitching curving down on left behind the screen. Perhaps I get used to that.
My assumed Finnish rally driver genes left untested while no time for curvy roads. Yet perhaps better so while verbal speed limiter sitting on back seat might have reacted negatively and risk for local high speeding fines.
Left feeling content. Addressed few questions on charging curve, USB-C type and few practicalities like changing of winter rims on order before delivery which they promised to get back to me.
I would prefer running solo and at least for few hours.
Very good experience with Polestar´s co-pilot, was not selling but assisting.
I'm going to go with mid to late August deliveries based on comments in another P3 test drive thread due to software not out of beta. Side note. On test drive spotted an Fisker Ocean with temporary plates. Makes me wonder if second owner or bankruptcy/inventory reduction purchase?
