Polestar 3 prototype review: the most important new Swedish SUV since the last one

Look at that, you wait ages for a Polestar...

And then two come along at once. This is the new 3, which is arriving shortly after the 4, which has launched just before it and has gone on sale in China. Sequential numbers, Jim, but not as we know them. There was a bit of a delay on the new electric platform that’s shared with Volvo, you see. But let’s not mention any of that. 

What’s it actually supposed to be?

That’s an entirely valid question. It’s an SUV – of course – but trying hard to disguise it with design and things. It’s got estate vibes, with a long, low look to it that ends in a sleek rear hatch, but it’s still high riding. It’s also very pared back and minimalist when you compare it with some of the efforts in the premium end of the market. Polestar’s chief designer Maximilian Missoni says the quiet approach is a deliberate one the company is taking, it’s the “Scandinavian way to be loud”. 

Looks quite sharp though, doesn’t it?

Aerodynamics have been quite a focus on the outside of the 3 – Missoni says that if you let aero dictate the shape of the car then you naturally end up with the distinctive teardrop silhouette that all eco cars follow. What Polestar has done here is sprinkle a bit of aero magic on a more familiar SUV footprint, with a cool looking wing sitting on top of the nose and conditioning air over the windscreen and roof. 

First impression? The design is very neat – the size of the car is well judged, and effectively disguised. The aero tricks are neat at the front and rear, and the height of the rear hatch is lower than you expect, the car tapering coupe-style down. The 3 shares all its underbits with the recently revealed Volvo EX90, but it’s 50mm shorter, 162mm lower and 111mm wider than the upright range topping SUV from across the other side of Gothenburg. 

Does it drive nicely?

The rule for carmakers is that whatever the car is, they always make the claim that theirs is a sporty one, with a dynamic ride and plenty of engagement for the driver. Is the 3 a sports car? Well no, of course not, but it is surprisingly mature and fun to drive.

The motor is perky in the way that all electric vehicles are – you get 483bhp/620lb ft in the standard version of the car, boosted to 510bhp/671lb ft if you opt for the Performance Pack.

The 0–62mph dash is over in 5.0s in the normal 3, knocking off 0.3secs with the extra power. The acceleration is meted out in a linear, well judged fashion rather than a slug of torquey mess being dumped through the wheels and leaving the car scrabbling along the road. 

The Performance Pack adds some engineering and software tweaks, a power boost, gold seatbelts and valve caps and fancy 22in alloy wheels. We’re looking forward to seeing whether the pack is really worth going for. 

We only had a brief go behind the wheel of late pre-production cars fresh from the Chengdu factory, but early signs were very promising. The brakes are progressive, though the accelerator felt overly light on the cars we tested, that could do with some more resistance. Another one of those dreaded things that can be tweaked with an over the air update, perhaps.

How’s the ride?

The air suspension and active dampers are a first for the brand, and they’ve been well integrated into the car. It’s easy to forget that there’s 2.6 tonnes of car underneath you – the weight is well contained and kept in check thanks partly to the dual chamber air suspension and active dampers and also to the low centre of gravity with most of the mass contained in the obese 111kWh battery pack beneath the floor. 

Polestar’s head of vehicle dynamics, Roger Wallgren, gave us a ride round Volvo’s top secret* (*it’s not actually top secret, but it sounds more fun) Hällered proving ground, where the company has invested a significant amount of money to create punishing stretches of tarmac that look exactly like two minutes from your house in the UK. Funnily enough there’s a section that former Ford exec Richard Parry Jones had the engineers slavishly copy metre by metre from near his house in Wales back when Volvo came under the Blue Oval’s banner. 

The 3 sailed round the nobbly bits of road, soaked up the worst of the off-road section on summer tyres in chilly Swedish weather (down a 45-degree slope, up a 60-degree slope, then down a set of stairs) and got nicely sideways on the windy country section. It cornered flat, but without putting undue pressure on the passengers. 

A typical 3 will never get driven like this, of course, but its responses were always measured and reassuring. A sudden lane change or a corner that tightens up on you more than expected aren’t enough to set the car on edge either. When a car is tested to the extremes it’s easier to live with day to day and dependable when the worst comes to the worst – so goes the theory. 

What about charging and that?

The onboard charger will juice the car at up to 11kW, find yourself a suitably beefy rapid charger and you can fill that battery at up to 250kW. You’ll need something heavy duty to avoid being stuck charging for hours – the battery in the Polestar 3 is a whopping 111kWh, which is how the 2.6-tonne car manages a 379-mile range. It’s about 30 miles less on the Performance Pack cars, mind. 

Filling up the battery from empty on an 11kW AC charger will take 11 hours, while plugging into a 250kW charger will get you from 10 per cent to 80 per cent battery in 30 minutes. 

What’s the interior like?

It looks good inside the 3 – it’s all very minimalist, but not to the point that you feel like you’re sitting in a cinema seat with a huge screen in front of you. Overall the 3 takes the Polestar template established with the 2 and moves it on a notch – the look and feel of the car is familiar, but that little bit better established and easier to live with. Polestar is keen to create a bit of distance between it and Volvo, but lots of the nice day to day touches remain. 

It’s all very sensible – even down to the UX team beavering away behind the scenes to make bespoke icons and spiff up Volvo’s infotainment system to make it easier to understand. The 14.5in central display is portrait oriented and runs the same Google setup as you’ll find in Volvo’s offerings, but Polestar has given the whole thing a thorough going over. 

The steering wheel is new – it’s firm to the touch and comparatively small, adding to the dynamic car-like feel. It has capacitive touch buttons to control various different functions (including the mirror positioning and the steering wheel itself when you’re in the right touchscreen sub-menu). 

You sit low behind the wheel, in the car rather than on it. Another intentional move by Polestar to reduce the upright SUV feel the car could have veered towards. Rear passengers won’t suffer from a lack of headroom. In fact there’s plenty of leg room too, which is good because you’d really have to wedge your feet under the seats in front if they were any closer.

Despite the sloping roof there’s still a decent-sized boot, though it might not compare too well against boxier rivals (there’s always the Volvo EX90). You get 484 litres of space with the seats up, 1,411 litres with them knocked down.

Can’t see any buttons in there...

That is the one problem we can foresee with the 3 – Polestar says its menus are all very sensible and there will be useful shortcut buttons at the bottom of the massive screen for all the features you might need to tweak, but would it kill them to sprinkle a few extra little buttons around the place?

The gear selector has been shifted to behind the steering wheel, nixing the crystal effect lever on previous Polestars. The one physical button that remains on the centre console is a volume knob for the audio, which replicates the look.

And when’s it arriving?

The 3 is set to go into production early in 2024, with deliveries to customers in early summer. The Long Range Dual Motor version of the car is the first version that will go on sale, and Polestar says it will cost a cool £79,990. The Performance Pack will be £5,600 on top of that. Tempted?