Polestar 4 - long-term review

The Angel of the North is big. Dwarfs even the big Polestar, although what with the perspective of the car park, this photo might not show it. Anyway, the Polestar had an easy return trip from London to Northumberland and back. A couple of weeks later, in Kent, I was really using its bigness.

I've always thought roof tents are a daft idea. Hard to put on the roof in the first place, which means you'll probably leave them bolted up there even when not using them, and suffer the wind noise and harm to fuel consumption. Still, it makes you look the rugged adventurous type, eh. Then when you do sleep up there, you've got to climb up a ladder. And you're so high you feel the suspension swaying about. They were invented so as to get you safely above marauding wildlife. Repeat after me: there are no grizzly bears in Kent.

So my plan, on a wild camping trip with friends, was to sleep in, rather than on, the car. Plenty of room, it turned out. But room wasn't the problem. It was the idiocy of a car that has, at least according to all the searches I've done of its manual, no off switch. Remember when cars had keys? You'd just turn them to O.

I had to go via multiple screen menus to turn off the proximity locking to stop it opening and closing every time I was near it at the campfire. (Anyway the proximity system often doesn't work anyway, but the car's key has no buttons and there's no keyhole so you just have to keep touching the doorhandles and hoping.)

Then more menu diving: turn off automatic ambient light. Turn down the screen brightness – which won't go right off and the screens stay on for about 10 minutes after you open the door. Turn off the interior light. Turn off the headlights. Turn off the climate. When you get into the Polestar all these things wake up, like an eager Spaniel thinking you're taking it for a walk. Even if you want to go nowhere. When a car is 100 per cent automation and zero per cent switchgear, it has the capacity to drive you bananas.

Still, I had a comfy night's sleep on a blow-up mattress. It turned out to be a warm weekend. Otherwise I could have set up 'pet mode' and specified a minimum temp for myself. Not available in roof tents. 'Warning,' it says sternly next to the pet mode menu, 'do not leave children unattended in the car.' Well I'm not a child. Anyway, it was warm enough to sleep with the windows down, but when it got chilly around first light I wound them up and discovered my closed capsule greatly attenuated the dawn chorus, which no doubt also isolated my friends in adjacent tents from my snoring. I woke happily when daylight blazed through the glass roof.

The information supplied by Polestar when it launched says the 4 has V2L capability. So I rang Polestar to check what adapter I need to power a hob from the socket and boil a camp kettle. 'Ah,' they said. 'That's coming in an OTA update. We don't know when.' Oh well, advertising a feature that's free but not yet present isn't as bad as charging thousands of pounds for an optional feature that's not activated for a decade, which is what Tesla has done with Full Self Driving.

Between camp field and home the boot was packed with my folding bike, plus my friends' tents and camp furniture, and them too. That would have blocked the view through the rear screen. But famously there isn't one, so for once I was glad of the camera rear mirror. Although I have not 'got used to it' as Polestar people assured me I would. It still doesn't stereo depth vision, and it still requires you to re-focus you eyes from the road, which is distant, to see its image, which is close. Those problems will never be fixed by OTA.

And yet… I really do like this car. It trips up on a lot of trivia, but the important stuff it gets very right.