If it would interest anyone, I took the Polestar 2 out for a test drive yesterday afternoon at Harrogate. Would people like my thoughts on that, so soon after my M3P test drive?
Polestar 2 test drive it is then!
This was an interesting weekend for me, 60miles north to Tesla Newcastle on the Saturday and then 50 miles south to Polestar ‘test drive’ station in Harrogate on the Sunday.
Ive narrowed my car choices to either of the Polestar 2 (PP) or the M3P (no-AP), so I booked the test drives to see if it would help me make up my mind.
The Harrogate test drive centre was simply a white cargo container with big Polestar letters all over it, set up in an office carpark next to Harrogate Police HQ. They had 5 Polestars all lined up on charge in various configurations.
The one I was alloted was the white (Snow?) with Performance pack. (See pics).
The car had ‘Covid’ stickers across the door seams on it to prove it had been sanitised after the last test drive.
Aesthetically, it speaks for itself - muscle car crossed with an SUV. I really liked its kerb appeal, perhaps a tiny bit more than the M3P. The alloys worked well as did the Performance pack options.
Salesman came over, loads of preamble, for him to frustratingly find out that I knew more than him about the options etc. We hopped in the car(me and missus) and began to setup the car for my driving.
We were told it was not a typical test drive... (pit of stomach fell out...) and it was to be a convoy test drive where all 5 cars would go out and follow a predefined route through the dales and then back to base, an hour round trip.
Sat Nav was easy to setup as you’d expect from any car of this price bracket. The door was closed by the salesman, and my immediate feeling was one of claustrophobia. I don’t suffer from this, but I felt very crammed in. The central console was very high (I’m 6ft), and all the windows felt like they basically pillbox vision slits. The rear view mirror reflected a very small opening that we shall loosely call the ‘rear window’.
I wanted to like the car, but at this point I was feeling quite hemmed in. Perhaps I could have adjusted the seat better but I didn’t have time.
It wasn’t Tesla interior - it was quite probably the exact opposite! The roof was close to my head and my missus said it looked like I was crouched over a bit although I apparently relaxed into the seat a little over time.
‘Hey Google take me to Work’ set the target destination to a pub carpark 30mins away, and the convoy pulled away. I felt that the car was quite slow to begin with, allegedly due to the brakes automatically applying to scrub the rust away on the large disks.
The brake regen was very severe, literally akin to medium braking which took a little getting used to. I didn’t applying the brakes at all, and used used one pedal driving for the whole drive.
When we pulled out onto the main road it went from 30MPH roadworks to NSL, my first opportunity to see what it could do - the convoy leader had disappeared off into the distance so I did likewise. You’d struggle to find an electric car that lacked torque and this was no exception, it was immediate and powerful, but by no means as punchy as the M3P.
Through the twisties, I had gotten used to the width of the car, and drove spiritedly and was genuinely impressed with the handling of such a heavy car. At this point however, the missus said she felt nauseous - she never feels unwell (even at Alton towers!), and no, she wasn’t pregnant!
Allegedly from the pax perspective, the car felt the same suspension-wise as my previous BMW M car which could rattle your teeth out, so perhaps the Ohlins needed some refinement.
We arrived at the carpark and I didn’t even realise but I never put the car into park or neutral, it just sat there with no creep. The 360 camera was going bonkers at this point as the surface of the carpark was uneven so I think the car thought I was about to hit little walls or something!
The convoy lead driver came over checked everything was ok and told me to say ‘Hey Google take me Home’ to take us back to the test drive station.
The way back was much of a muchness, as before, the car felt very quiet and very obedient, but I just couldn’t get over the sense of being hemmed in.
We arrived back at the test drive centre, and had to reverse park into the bay. I did my usual turn in and quickly found out that the turning circle on these is massive, what would normally be a smooth reverse ended up as a 5 point turn.
I feel that it was a good, well built car, with lots of nice options, but I just felt it was a smidge underpowered and the overarching feeling of claustrophobia really grated on me. I would have liked to have spent more time adjusting the seat to see if I could get it feeling better, but I didn’t have time as we were the last convoy of the day!