Polestar 4 - long-term review

You wouldn't expect a company to triple its range in one fell swoop, but in 2024 Polestar went from 2-only to 2, 3 and 4. The 4 being cheaper than the 3, huh? Both 4 and 3 are similar sized. And Polestar wants us not to be confused…

Even more strange, the 4 and 3 are made on different platforms, and use different electronic interfaces. I drove them both on the same day and preferred the 4, even though Polestar tells me to prefer the 3 because it's more expensive. But the 4 has a more natural-feeling suspension, and an interface that caused me less cognitive stress.

So here I am, looking cheerfully at six months in a 4. One more strange thing. Scan Top Gear's EV reviews and you'll see we nearly always advise 'get the big battery and single motor'. But not with this car.

The twin motor spec in the Polestar 4 doesn't cost it much WLTP range, and brings adaptive dampers, which make quite a difference on British roads. They allow the wheels to better follow the surface on sharp bumps but largely prevent the body floating on longer undulations.

That's £67,750, although as I write there's a 'seasonal offer' of £5k off, plus 0 per cent finance. The car here also has the £1,300 Pilot Pack which is adaptive lane-assisted cruise control. Not sure why it isn't standard, that. Its 20in wheels are big enough, so we skirted the £1,800 Pro Pack which has 21s. There's a Performance Pack at £4k, with 22in wheels and tuned suspension, but that'd definitely be a bit much for our increasingly lumpen roadways.

Finally we have the Plus Pack. But in another sign of Polestar's impish appetite for confusion, it's standard and adds £0 to the price. It includes pixel LED headlights, Harman Kardon stereo, HUD, rear control screen, heated electric rear seats, power front seats. The glass roof is £1,300 and electron blue paint £1,000. With all that, the 4 isn't greedily priced. I just configured a BMW i4 M60 xDrive, a much smaller car, to a similar spec and went way over £80k.

That's 345 words on the Polestar 4 and I will now mention the first thing you thought of. The lack of rear windscreen. On early acquaintance it did annoy me. The whole business of seeing out of this car seemed infuriatingly and scarily difficult. My early trips involved a lot of manoeuvring in tight London streets in the dark and rain. It's an extremely wide car and its corners can't be seen from the driver's seat. The rear camera has a strange perspective at close distances so you have to use the surround cameras and they get weirdly fisheye when raindrops cling to them.

On open-road driving the rear camera mirror makes a bit more sense, but even so I still have doubts over the Polestar refrain of 'you'll get used to it' and it'll be the subject of one of the updates I'll post here over the coming months. One good thing: I did a long trip with the boot stacked to the roof and of course the view was totally unimpeded because the camera's on the roof.

That trip was cold and wet to the UK's west country, and when I was there it was at the end of a 50-day spell of uninterrupted wet weather. That's 10 days longer than Noah himself endured. And the temperature was low single digits. Generating spray on motorways uses a lot of energy, so I was getting little better than 2.8 m/kWh, for 260 miles range.

Recently I went to Lotus near Norwich, and on the way it was dry and I set the cruise control at an indicated 70 and got for 3.3m/kWh and 310 miles. Spring temperatures will bring it higher.