Polestar 3 – At This Price Level, I’m Not Sure
This is the Pstar 3, which weirdly is bigger than the Polestar 4, but it comes with a 107 kWh battery. That’s usable capacity. To put that into some sort of context, that’s more than double the size of my standard range Tesla Model 3. It’s huge. And as you can tell, the car itself is a big SUV. So, we’re talking high-end premium levels here. The BMW iX sort of price point. It’s a company car. Let’s face it. Pstar are known for their efficiency now. The two and the four have taught us that they are very good at it. So, can they take something that weighs 2 and a half tonsish and make it efficient? At least relatively speaking. Normally, I’d show you around the car by walking around it, but that would take me a week and a half. So, we’ll do the highlights. It’s very Polestar, which for me is a good thing. They’ve got a very good brand image. I like this arrow. I really like that. And it puts the air where it needs to be for efficiency and for well, the wind noise. We’ll come back to that later on, though, because this is one of the quietest cars I’ve ever been in. The sensors for all the radar guided cruise control are all hidden nicely here. good integration. And of course, it’s got the Polestar lights. And yeah, it’s a big car. And I mean, look, I can’t I literally can’t reach the other side of the bonnet. Let’s see if it’s got a frunk, though, cuz given the size, it should be huge. Get it open. There we go. We do have a frunk. However, you get your cables in it, but it’s about four times smaller than something like a Tesla Model Y. Why? Look at the size of the wasted space. The wheels 20-in. That’s standard. They can go up to 22 in. And I do like the fact with this high-end premium car, if you will, which the price suggests it is, they’ve gone for at least some decent tires. We’ve got some Michelin Pilot Sport EV tires for the noise and the grip. It makes a big difference. I always like to see a manufacturer putting decent tires on. Now, the doors are quite heavy. You’d expect that, I guess. A little bit from quality, but little bit from size. And wait till you see the rear. It’s huge. You got a lot of the black plastic, which you’d expect from this sort of car. I’m not sure if I’m a big fan of it, but what what else are you going to get? Nothing puts me off the car. There’s nothing ugly about it. It is what it is. Let me uh just turn something on so you can see the difference that the off-road mode makes. You can see the size of the gaps here and I’ve seen it higher than this as well. So, it’s got air suspension at least in some of the versions. What can I say about the back other than again big car? I do like the light bar with these red lines coming from it in terms of the LED. I love the arrow again goes all the way through here. So, the air kind of really nicely comes up the front, goes over the car. I’m not sure what these are for cuz they don’t don’t well they don’t seem to do anything. Of course, you’re going to get dirty fingers going in the rear because the button is next to the number plate. Obviously, there’s other ways of opening the boot, but you get my point. And it is a big boot that goes back nicely and comes out and hides. It’s not the biggest in its class. The Audi BMWs have a slightly bigger boot, but it is not bad at all. and will you definitely get your golf bats in here. And if you lift this up, then you got quite a bit of space underneath for things. It’s a nice flat load bay as well, which is good. And when you put the seats down, it’s completely flat. Okay, we have the familiar Polestar interior, but this is a bit bigger. And we have the usual kind of recycled premium fabrics, we’ll call it. Bit of an LED night thing there, which does look good at night. You can’t really tell in the sunshine. Why would you have a button so you can change the rear and then you can change the front? Why why not just give me four like every other car? I don’t I don’t get that. It’s a bit weird. But it does feel solid and chunky and nice sort of feel to it. It feels like you got an expensive car. This is like a speaker fabric but better. And it goes all the way along there. And this is a nice dashboard. I would say that that white effect. It’s quite nice. Yeah, it’s really good. Premium. Very premium. And then you got this big tablet which is obviously Android tablet. It’s nice and responsive. The only thing I’d say is that all of the uh air con controls are touch interface. The steering wheel feels nice. But then you’ve got these black gloss. Look at the fingerprints already. And there’s nothing on them that tells you what they do. You hover your finger over and the screen there tells you what it does. And it’s configurable. So it does change. This, for example, doesn’t do anything until you engage your radar guided cruise control and whatnot. And then you’ve got these which they feel solid but again black gloss. Why give me more of this type of stuff and this rather than well it’s it feels cheap if I’m honest. Whilst we’re talking about cheap, look at this black gloss. It’s terrible, isn’t it? The fingerprints, the scratches. The Pstar 2 had this and they got rid of it. So why is it in the P three? You do have the wireless charger here for your phone and it’s got little vents. Look, I like that. Which cool your phone down to stop it overheating. And I have to say that the door pockets are massive. I mean, you’ll get like a three liter bottle of Coke in that. Can you just show people? Not so good. What on earth is that? That’s just dreadful, isn’t it? I can’t think of any excuse to have that. Oh no. Let Let me just leave it open and put the pink bottle in its place. You do have a nice armrest. That’s really wide. That’s good. and plenty of storage down there to hide the key which um well I guess you get a phone. You’ll use your phone so it’s not really a biggie. And you got a bit of storage down here as well. That’s where you can put your phone and then you’ll lose it. Oh yeah. Yeah. So you’ll forget your phone. It’s like a catapult. Yep. Yep. That’s where you can smash your screen. It is of course a touchcreen to open. A look at this. That’s a decent size. I like that. Yeah, it’s good. So no curry hook. No. And if you feel, you know, ooh, that’s a the bits you don’t touch. Yeah. Yeah. As we said earlier, it’s the Android touchcreen, which is pretty fast. And you’ve got all your apps. It does Apple CarPlay, so you don’t all have to be uh like Android. And you got all your settings here. You can have different shortcuts. It’s okay once you get used to it. It’s busy, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s not bad. And you got lots of options in terms of driving modes. So, we got We’ll put that into performance Harry, of course. So, these aren’t the standard seats. They’re only 500 quid option. So, they’re pretty much they’re the standard seats essentially and you know, don’t mind them. They’re pretty good. They’re comfortable. They’re infinitely adjustable with the uh you know, the controls down the side. They’re recycled or 100% fossilfree PVC. This is a welcome thing, though, which is standard on all Pstar 3 models. So, that’s good. I do like that. It’s become one of my favorite modern car features. I do like a panoramic roof. Um, but now one of the superpowers of this car is the colossal amount of space in the rear. Now, I should point out that this seat is in a position so you couldn’t reach I can’t reach the front. You can’t reach the front. It was that far from the front. But look at this space you’ve got there. Insane. Look at the front down near your legs. Yeah. And it’s all flat. It is. Yeah. All the complete flat. And then we’ve got a bit of a rest. Look at size of the middle seat. Compared to a normal car where it would just be, you know. Yeah. Yeah. The boot’s big enough. It’s not the biggest design, is it? But it’s big enough. But that this is this is for me where the the size of the car is going. I actually prefer it back here than I do at the front. Well, the first thing to say about this is it is genuinely either the joint or the quietest EV I’ve ever I think. Yeah, I think there’s only the Genesis EVs that that come close to this, but I think this possibly beats them. I mean, it’s if you can hear anything through the microphone, it’s just the air conditioning because it is extremely hot outside or just us breathing because I I’ve been on the phone to people on the motorway and they didn’t know I was driving and usually there’s a lot of background noise with cars. The wind noise is barely audible cuz you can’t get rid of everything and the tire noise again is nearly non-existent. Yeah. Partly because of what the car has got and the size of it. The Pilot Sport EV tires, they certainly do the job with the Pstar logo on them. So, they’ve been developed, I believe. Yeah. Jointly. So, some decent Michelans will also help with that. And the grip, because this is the dual motor version, and it’s not exactly slow. So, you can hear things rattling around in a bit. So, it’s more than quick enough for any car. Yeah. PreVe, this would be Rolls-Royce only, wouldn’t it? Oh, it’d be unheard of. Yes. Literally, like the pun, unheard of. Hey, so for me that then does kind of justify a little bit of the price that again we’ll mention in a second. Um because we’re talking BMW EX, uh Mercedes EQE and Audi R. What is it? Q8 Ron. So this is that class, isn’t it? It’s a company car. Lease car is this. No one’s buying this in Well, do you know this is this is the funny thing, isn’t it? I have to get out of my head that this isn’t primarily a family car. It won’t be, will It’ll be a person. It’s a family car, but I imagine families are buying this as their primary car. It’s uh the company executive who’s doing quite well for himself. It’s not the biggest we’ve had, but it is wide, especially on these roads. And when you’re parking it, I’ve noticed that again, you kind of have to really be in the middle of the lines. Now, the turning circle, I have to say, is ridiculously good for a car of this size. Wow, we’re out. I didn’t think Oh. Uh 30. Oh, bit spin. 50 and they were at 60. And that is up a fairly steep hill. That’s that’s quick, isn’t it? And this isn’t the performance version either or performance. There’s a faster version than this, is it? There is, which I can’t imagine you need. It’s not necessary. Do you think it’s got too much power as it is? Does it need it? I mean, it can do it. It doesn’t need it, but every other car, you know, like a Range Rover or a you get like a 5 L V6 competition has to it has to, doesn’t it? It it needs all that torque for towing as well, doesn’t it? Well, it can tow if you tick the box anyway. Uh 2.2 ton for a bra trailer. So, wow. So, that’s going to take the overall weight to 4 and a uh 4.7 4.8 ton. Wow. So, if you’re towing over one ton, you have to have your 3.5. The horn’s good for when people pull out on you without looking. Yep. Didn’t Didn’t look. No. Straight out. Jesus. I think he has a small poo in his pants now. Yeah. Would you say this interior matches the price? No. No. It’s It’s more of 50 60 grand. So, it’s more a mid-range interior, isn’t it? So, let’s mention the price then. It starts in just under 70 grand for the entry and I’ve picked the top level and every option I can think of just just for a bit of fun on their website. 96. And speaking of options, they’re annoying, aren’t they? You can’t just option one or two things. It’s again, it’s done in packs and you’ve got to stack the packs, haven’t you, to get certain things. What I would expect this to have by default for a car of this price is like the hood, the rear heated seats. Yeah. The 360° camera. I mean, you need that for parking. The premium sound system, the noise cancelling, and the uh prop pilot, the the autopilot, if you will. That’s all part of the I think it’s called the plus pack which is £5,000. But to get that you’ve got to have the pilot pack which is 2 grand is £2,300. Wow. So you have to spend £7,000 uh £300 to get what what you would expect to get by what everyone else should have for a car that costs this much. And the ride is so good you have to have the air suspension. Yeah, that’s a definite, isn’t it? Absolutely. But the entry level, which is the single motor, you can only get the standard coil springs on that one. You have to get the dual motor version. For the air suspension, which again means that to get the car or to get the Pstar 3 that you should have that you would want, you’re looking at £81 to £82,000 list price. The disappointing thing about that is I think that the single motor one’s probably going to be the plum one to go for. It’s going to be quick enough. You get the extra range as well. about 30 mi extra range on the single motor. But the fact that you can’t get that uh suspension on that model forces you up and again you get that pack which means you have to get that pack. Again, we said this with the the four and the two is you’re buying this cuz it’s a polestar. You’re buying this cuz you’re turning up to a business meeting and you don’t want to turn up in a BMW or an Audi because people have already made the decision about you before you arrive. You turn up in the Polestar and it’s is oh it’s cool. I would still pick this over them because of image. And it’s a cliche, but it does matter to people, doesn’t it? It does. Yeah. And if you turn up to somewhere or you’re just driving a massive BMW SUV or an Audi SUV, people have made their mind up about you already. There’s a stigma regardless to whether it’s an EV or not. There’s a stigma and there isn’t with the Polestar owner. It’s like a Volvo owner. Yeah. Yeah. They’ve got that brand recognition, haven’t they? I think there’s a bit of a curveball. the EV9. Well, it’s a similar size battery and it’s a similar size in terms of the both big big cars. More practical. Well, yeah, cuz you got six or seven seats. Yeah. Whereas you don’t with this. For me, I’d be going for the uh And it’s cheaper. The EV9. It’s a lot cheaper. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I kind It’s not a Pstar. No. But I mean, I didn’t feel like it was any less of a car. No. You know what it is? I like this, but I look at it and think I feel like I’m in a Pstar 2 or the four. Yeah, just bigger. There’s no there’s no differentiation, is there, between the interior 2, three, and the four. And as you it’s you know, it’s like you get an Audi A3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, whatever they go up to now. Is you you get a slightly different interior or uh uh quality of interior the further you go up. Well, yeah. You compare an A4 to an A8 and the A8’s got a lot better interior. Much better. Whereas this, I feel like I’m in a Pstar 2 upgraded compared to a Polestar 4. It’s about 20 grand more. I mean, it’s Why would you go for this over the Polestar 4? In my mind, it’s just very difficult to place this. And I think you hit the nail on the head in that it’s it’s a company car. It is. It’s going to be one person sat in it driving up and down the motorway. And you’re getting this over the Polestar 4 because it’s more expensive and you got higher status in your company. Yeah. You can just take that. You know what I mean? Yeah, you know the emergency exit seats where you get the extra leg room. It is that I’ve got the same seat. I’ve just got a little bit of extra leg room which you have in here. I would say it’s easy to drive but it’s only because of the cameras that pop up when you get near something. It does feel very small when you’re sat in that seat, doesn’t it? But can you see the end of the bonnet without actually head on? I can. Yeah. But again, some some cars are easy to judge and some are harder. And this is a harder one. I always surprise myself cuz when I lift my head up where the bonnet is, it’s a lot further forward. It goes on forever, doesn’t it? It’s a really long bonnet. You get a V8 in that. I get it why it’s here, but then I’m thinking, who is getting this? He’s the company car owner. But then I think that about who’s buying the Q8, who’s buying the BMW iX. Exactly. It’s the status symbol. It is. Yeah. So, this is their version of that, and there’s clearly a market to go for. If it is that, I think this is the most tasteful one out of all of them. And the interesting thing is, I think in 3 to 5 years, what these are going to be worth on the secondhand market. Well, I’ve had a look and they haven’t been out long, granted, but 74 red, so it’s not quite a year old yet. Uh, it’s done 10,000 miles and there’s a few of them like this. It’s not on its own. Uh, and it’s the uh dual performance. So, dual dual motor. So, not the performance, the dual motor. So, same as this one. Yeah. With the packs that we’ve mentioned, so it’s the car you would want. 55 grand. I mean, that’s that’s that’s the fair price, I think, for that’s over 30 grand drop in less than a year. Do you think anyone will notice that I’m knackered because I’ve had to run to get the extra battery? Be fine. No one’s going to even notice a thing, are they? I don’t even think they know that we’ve switched driving. No. Have we? When it comes to driving, the range. Yes. I’ve done about 3 350 mi in it. Uh 200 miles of which was on the motorway. And I used 50% to do nearly 200 miles. I think it was 195 miles. That’s Wow. So that’s telling me that if you went it completely to flat 380, you’re nearly at 400 miles. And that’s all motorway. That’s a big barrier, isn’t it? That it is 320 to 400 depending on winter type of driving. So as an average, we’ll say it’s a 340. It’s quite efficient. I’m getting about 3.1 to 3.2 m per kowatt hour out of it, which given the size of it, for a 2 and 12 ton car, that’s pretty good. Also is where you got to think about rolling resistance. So quite wide tires. Yep. I like it. I like I really like Polestar as a brand. Yeah, I do. Yeah. I would pick this over the Audi and Mercedes that we mentioned. Well, I’ve said before, I can see myself having a two in the future. Yep. I just look and think there is no way I’m sat in a car that’s costing me £80,000. I can’t get past it. Oh, and you know the seats that we forgot to mention earlier. If you want Oh, yeah. full Nappa animal friendly leather. Five grand for the leather seats. Wow. Five grand. That’s a lot. There is a car we’ve forgotten about. Genesis. GV70. 70. And they’ve just refreshed that which we’re getting on the channel in a month or two to make it bit more efficient. The thing is you’re getting a Genesis and you know you’re in something that’s a bit special that they’ve nailed. The interior is much nicer cuz they’re designing it to be as nice as possible. And I know that this will probably do about 100 miles more than that. I’d still get the Genesis. You know what? I probably would because I feel like I’m in I feel like I spent that money. Yeah. Yeah. I feel special in it. Got to surprise you. What food is this? Oh, what food is it? Is it Is it a I know. Do you know the tomahawk steaks that Little were doing? Yeah. For like 20 quid. Yeah. It’s that versus the restaurant 100 pound tomahawk steak. Well, it’s Yeah. Essentially, you’re not going to be able to tell the difference that is. So, it’s a it’s a tomahawk steak from Little. Yeah. And that’s not a bad thing, by the way. They’re really nice. I think the thing is with this, if you got in this and you drove somebody around, I think they’d like it up until the point you told them how much it cost. Yeah. And then they go, “How much?” Yeah. The value of the uh membership trounces this. Oh, it does. Yeah. That is that 99 p? I think 9,000. No, no, no, no. Maybe I should raise it and just call it premium. I think you’ll get away with that. I don’t even think it matches the value of driving own podcast, which is free. which Yeah, that’s only available on the other channel, isn’t it? And on all podcast places. Yeah. Wow. I mean, we’re just giving it away. How are we giving that podcast away for free? I don’t know. Well, you know what? Is it because we’re worthless? Either way, we’ll end it on that note, guys. Thanks for watching. Thank you. Bye bye. They’ll never know. No. Oh, by the way, the charging speed is up to 250 kW. Oh, wow. That’s amazing. All right, as we’ve ended this video twice, I’m going to end it on showing you a picture of the alternative BMW iX. And let me know in the comments if you throw up when you see this. Wait a minute. Batch just gone. A new pace.
The Polestar 2 & 4 were mightily impressive, however, when you get to this price point it has to step it up a lot to compete!
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