It happened.
Today I was driving about 25 mph and experienced the dreaded Propulsion System Failure. The car immediately started stuttering—not in a comforting way—and abruptly slowed to a complete stop. In the middle of a busy intersection.
“Stop safely.” (Like I had a choice.)
“The vehicle will stop.” (Tell me something I don’t already know.)
“Propulsion system failure.” (You don’t say.)
This was the message on the dash display.
The car would barely move at this point. And I’m stuck in the middle of a busy intersection. At rush hour.
It took me 10-15 mins to CRAWL the vehicle onto a side street. And when I say crawl, I mean I was moving about an inch per hour (new acronym alert: IPH). And even that dreadfully slow crawl was very stressful because the car would only move (and really, it was more of a staccato stutter) if I pressed down almost completely on the accelerator. This really stressed me out because the car was obviously having a complete meltdown. And what if the car all of a sudden decided to accelerate? Very dangerous.
When I finally got the car safely onto a side street, it then stopped moving entirely. Literally wouldn’t move forward. Except— it would crawl and stutter backwards. Again— very, very slowly. And with terrible mechanical pulsing noises coming from the car. The car was obviously having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Once I was in a safe location I called Polestar support. And after a few minutes they dispatched a tow truck to my location. And promised me I’d get a loaner or rental in the morning.
When the tow truck finally arrived (after 90 minutes), the car would no longer shift into any gear. The only thing that was happening when I tried to shift the gear lever was a series of sequential warning messages that would rotate on the dash display. I tried everything. Getting out. Locking the car. Rebooting the infotainment. Etc. Nothing would work. The car would not shift into any gear.
After about 10 minutes of the tow truck driver and I brainstorming what to do—and him about to winch the vehicle onto the flatbed on wheel dollys—we had a thought that the car must have a ‘Tow Mode’ or something like that. So I fumbled around the settings and eventually found it. We followed the directions and thankfully we got the car into neutral, so it could be winched onto the flatbed.
The car is currently being towed to the nearest service location—150 miles away.
Interestingly, it was about a week ago that I upgraded to 2.2. And ever since that time—in fact, it was immediately after I got into the car after the upgrade—I began receiving parking sensor and brake warnings. I could tell nothing mechanically was different in the car. But these error messages were consistently random. And then today—BOOM!—total propulsion system failure.
I’ve had my car for a year. I’ve been patient with a lot of the software issues because I truly enjoy the car. But tonight, wow, things really changed for me. Putting all the inconveniences aside, this is a major safety issue that Polestar needs to address.
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Today I was driving about 25 mph and experienced the dreaded Propulsion System Failure. The car immediately started stuttering—not in a comforting way—and abruptly slowed to a complete stop. In the middle of a busy intersection.
“Stop safely.” (Like I had a choice.)
“The vehicle will stop.” (Tell me something I don’t already know.)
“Propulsion system failure.” (You don’t say.)
This was the message on the dash display.
The car would barely move at this point. And I’m stuck in the middle of a busy intersection. At rush hour.
It took me 10-15 mins to CRAWL the vehicle onto a side street. And when I say crawl, I mean I was moving about an inch per hour (new acronym alert: IPH). And even that dreadfully slow crawl was very stressful because the car would only move (and really, it was more of a staccato stutter) if I pressed down almost completely on the accelerator. This really stressed me out because the car was obviously having a complete meltdown. And what if the car all of a sudden decided to accelerate? Very dangerous.
When I finally got the car safely onto a side street, it then stopped moving entirely. Literally wouldn’t move forward. Except— it would crawl and stutter backwards. Again— very, very slowly. And with terrible mechanical pulsing noises coming from the car. The car was obviously having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Once I was in a safe location I called Polestar support. And after a few minutes they dispatched a tow truck to my location. And promised me I’d get a loaner or rental in the morning.
When the tow truck finally arrived (after 90 minutes), the car would no longer shift into any gear. The only thing that was happening when I tried to shift the gear lever was a series of sequential warning messages that would rotate on the dash display. I tried everything. Getting out. Locking the car. Rebooting the infotainment. Etc. Nothing would work. The car would not shift into any gear.
After about 10 minutes of the tow truck driver and I brainstorming what to do—and him about to winch the vehicle onto the flatbed on wheel dollys—we had a thought that the car must have a ‘Tow Mode’ or something like that. So I fumbled around the settings and eventually found it. We followed the directions and thankfully we got the car into neutral, so it could be winched onto the flatbed.
The car is currently being towed to the nearest service location—150 miles away.
Interestingly, it was about a week ago that I upgraded to 2.2. And ever since that time—in fact, it was immediately after I got into the car after the upgrade—I began receiving parking sensor and brake warnings. I could tell nothing mechanically was different in the car. But these error messages were consistently random. And then today—BOOM!—total propulsion system failure.
I’ve had my car for a year. I’ve been patient with a lot of the software issues because I truly enjoy the car. But tonight, wow, things really changed for me. Putting all the inconveniences aside, this is a major safety issue that Polestar needs to address.
