Polestar 2
REPORT 5
£40,130 OTR/£46,850 as tested/£595pcm
WHY IT’S HERE
Is it the thoughtful and better alternative to a Tesla Model 3?
DRIVER
Tom Ford
I’LL START WITH A DISCLAIMER THAT YOU SHOULD IN NO WAY TRUST my science methods or even my opinion But I believe I have possibly discovered the holy grail of electric car tuning Yes having downloaded the over the air performance upgrade for the dual motor Polestar not only have I gained power and performance but what appears to be another miles of range Faster and longer is not something that usually happens at the same time And no you don’t get the extra range if you make use of the extra grunt but that’s physics for you Or possibly chemistry
So what is it? Well the P fairly regularly suggests that it needs to do a software update exactly like your mobile phone Most of these are the same as your device software fixes that you don’t really catch But if you order the hop up via the Polestar online shop your car simply goes to sleep for minutes and then wakes up with another bhp and lb ft of torque So you get a grand total of bhp and lb ft mph down of a second from to secs and a mph time down to seconds half a second quicker than before
The car just spins its electric motors more freely like an ICE car with more than miles on it when the engine has finally loosened up I’m not entirely sure an electric motor does the same thing but the upgrade increases the P ’s verve You can feel the mid range pep that’ll be the more significant bhp at play but honestly it’s more that the car feels freer rather than terribly more urgent Of equal significance is the fact that if you don’t use the extra power the P apparently gains range which is even more of a big deal with energy prices soaring across the board This is hugely significant to me usually a couple of times a week I have a mile each way journey In winter the car would need a charge now it doesn’t Good