Important consumer advice: the new Polestar 3 will drift!

The new Polestar 3 is a big car with big horsepower and even bigger ambitions. Polestar itself remains coy on the volumes it expects the 3 to shoulder but be in no doubt they’ll be… big.

Outside the Very Important Business case of building a posh, electric SUV on a platform shared with one of the best family SUVs available (the XC90) – ie, what you’d politely term a ‘no brainer’ – the car actually has to drive well.

The person responsible is one Joakim Rydholm, Polestar’s chassis development boss, who told TopGear.com at the car’s launch that though his job is to benchmark the new 3 against a range of rivals – spanning combustion engines and EVs – the 3 must feel like a different car. “We don’t want to make a copy of a Porsche, for example, we want to do our own thing,” he tells TG.

He notes the 3’s various modes that allow precise control of a machine capable of producing 510bhp (with the Performance Pack), and that M3-levels of power won’t be overwhelming to the average family SUV driver. “You should deliver that power in a predictable way so the driver will not be surprised.”

While all versions of the 3 get a dual-motor drivetrain, it'll remain FWD when at a steady cruise, for example. As soon as it senses a loss of traction, it'll seamlessly re-engage the rear motor. And on the topic of losing traction, one surprise is his free admission that, “when you take the Polestar 3 on ice and snow, you will feel that you are in total control, and you can play with it. We want to create a driver’s car.”

So, it’ll drift? A hearty laugh. “If you switch off the ESC, you can drift as much as you want. But, we don’t have any drift modes or anything like that, but you can slide it. I think that’s important for Top Gear’s readers to know.”

Though, he urges caution. “If you compete in drifting, you should not buy a Polestar 3!” Caveat acknowledged, he did say that with electric cars, drivers have to change according to an electric motor’s power delivery. “In the old days you kicked out the slide and then countersteered to balance the car. If you countersteer [in an EV], torque vectoring and ESC think you want to go in the direction you’re countersteering, so it’ll kill the slide for you. So you have to change.”

Good tip. If you want to know just how big the Polestar 3’s numbers are – and there are a few to take in – click here for the full story.