POLESTAR
2

Before the test drives, the check-ups and the negotiated tire pressures, there was the question: why, of all things, a Polestar 2? The arguments, served cold.

01 · The brand

Polestar didn't appear out of nowhere: it started as a Swedish racing team - Flash Engineering, from 1996, then Polestar Racing - racing Volvos in the touring car championship and tuning the road cars. In 2015, Volvo bought it outright, the way Mercedes keeps AMG. And since 2017 it has been a standalone brand, electric only, with its headquarters, design and engineering in Gothenburg. The name comes from the North Star.

And for those who wrinkle their nose at "it's Chinese": yes, the Polestar 2 is built in China, in the plant that also builds the Volvo XC40. Exactly like the iPhone - designed by Apple in California, assembled in China. The Polestar 2 is designed and engineered in Sweden and assembled in China.

The first car under the new brand was a statement, not a volume product: Polestar 1 - a hybrid GT with a carbon-fibre body, over 600 hp, built in just 1,500 units. Only then came the 2 - the car that had to matter.

02 · The format and the design

A curiosity that works. Visually it reads as a sedan, but it sits higher than one - and in reality it's a fastback, with a large tailgate that opens together with the rear glass. The design is restrained, almost stern, yet muscular - a Scandinavian monolith. Not a single extra line, and still a road presence many more expensive cars don't have.

Nothing accidental here: the brand's first CEO, Thomas Ingenlath, came straight from the chief designer's chair at Volvo. Polestar is run by designers, not by marketing - you can see it in every line. Even the racing blue, "Swedish racing blue", is an inheritance from the circuit years.

03 · The philosophy

Deeper than the design is the way of thinking. The Swedes have a word for it - "lagom": exactly enough, nothing more. And behind it stands a whole unwritten law of Scandinavia, Jantelagen - the Law of Jante: don't think you're special, don't stand out, even if you could. Sounds odd for a car with 421 hp - but that's precisely what it does: it has them and doesn't show them. It pulls away gently, looks restrained, stays quiet. Mechanical modesty - power that feels no need to prove anything.

04 · The battery

It's architecture, not just a slab under the floor. Pe CMA platform (shared with the XC40), the 27-module pack is shaped like an H plus a T - it fills the centre tunnel too, not just the floor. It is structurally integrated, adds to the chassis rigidity, and the mass sits gathered toward the middle. Measured effect: road noise is 3.7 dB lower than on a conventional chassis - the battery is tuned to cancel certain frequencies, working as a vibration damper. That's why some say it drives nicer than classic EVs, where the battery is a flat slab doing structural duty. They're right.

05 · The drivetrain

After the facelift, it's the right one. Polestar did something almost unheard of at a mid-cycle refresh: it moved the drive from the front to the rear. The main motor - new, permanent-magnet, with a silicon-carbide inverter - sits on the rear axle; on the Dual Motor, the front one is asynchronous and decouples completely when it is not needed. 310 kW, 740 Nm, 4.5 seconds to 100. In effect they admitted the car deserved this drivetrain from the start.

06 · The suspension

Simple out of conviction, not economy. Passive - MacPherson up front, multi-link at the rear. No air springs, no adaptive dampers that die at 150,000 km. And on the Performance Pack, Polestar went exactly against the fashion: Öhlins with manual adjustment. Mechanical, analogue, repairable - nothing to "recalibrate at the dealer".

07 · The rest of the range

The Polestar 1 is a hybrid - two worlds to maintain. The Polestar 3 weighs nearly 2.6 tonnes, with air suspension and LiDAR. The Polestar 4 removed its rear window. This is the lightest Polestar - around two tonnes - purely electric, steel body, with nothing that breaks in interesting ways. Plus the Volvo safety inheritance: the block that deflects the wheel in a frontal impact so it does not reach the battery.

08 · The money

Second-hand, it's the most accessible Polestar: the brutal depreciation of premium EVs is the first owner's problem and the second owner's gift. Under a third of the price, at 40,000 km, with the battery at 93%.

09 · Why not just the e-Golf

And still - why, if I was happy with the e-Golf? It stayed in the family, nobody replaced it. But the reasons, in order of honesty:

4x4 for the few snowy days a year - and it's nice that it isn't permanent: at speed, the front motor decouples and stops wasting energy. Electrically adjustable seats with memory - useful when my better half needs the car and the seat remembers each of us. And the ground clearance, higher than a Golf's.

The rest - the power, the battery twice the size - are a nice bonus, not a reason.

10 · The spec sheet

Battery	78 kWh gross · 75 kWh net (usable)
Range	~590 km WLTP · ~400 km real-world
Power · torque	310 kW (421 hp) · 740 Nm
0-100 km/h	4,5 s
Drivetrain	AWD · front decouples at speed
Energy cost / 10,000 km	~7,180 lei (~€370) - at 20 kWh/100 km and 3.59 lei/kWh, at home

Note: at ~20,000 km a year, the Polestar's energy costs ~€740. The X3: ~€4,600 in fuel, plus 2-3 oil and filter changes at ~€200 each.

But pure doesn't mean perfect. The proof - in the entries further on.

Before this one there were two: a Polestar 2 from America belonging to an acquaintance, then another from 2022, also from the States, on 20-inch wheels - exaggeratedly stiff, with downright noisy suspension.

This one - the 2024 facelift, on 19s - has a different character: not extremely comfortable, but acceptable. The difference between 19 and 20 inches is bigger than it looks on paper.

It was the only facelift for sale here: new, more efficient motors, a slightly bigger battery, the front motor decoupling at speed. Leather interior, very well equipped.

Brought over from the States - clearly not in one piece. The driver's side scraped at a car wash (nothing structural) and the passenger-side suspension arms bent on a kerb - replaced. The rest restored, the alignment checked. I said yes.

A friend who usually helps me check cars took it to a workshop: the alignment, the error codes, the state of the battery.

The alignment - fine. The errors - nothing dramatic. The battery - SOH 93% at around 40,000 km on the clock.

For a car at less than a third of its price when new, that's more than acceptable.

At least one of the tyres on the car was dangerously worn, so a new set of Continentals arrived.

The surprise: the guys at Continental inflated them to about 2.8 bar - and the car turned mega stiff. After a short drive, the fronts had reached 3.0. Exactly that 20-inch stiffness I had been running from.

I let them down to 2.65. Breathable again - not extremely comfortable, but acceptable. On a two-tonne EV, a few tenths of a bar go straight to your spine.

01 · The process tax

Charging at home, from a plain socket, without a wall charger - here, compared to the e-Golf, things are worse. At 220V directly, a considerable part goes to the process itself: some 350-500 W for the battery's thermal management and the on-board electronics that stay awake the whole time you're plugged in.

The dashboard tells the whole story, especially in a heatwave: 47°C outside, 10 of 16 amps, and a charging speed of 2 km/h. Yes, kilometres per hour: that's how much range you gain while the battery fights the heat.

02 · The math

The math is merciless at 2.3 kW: 400 W of overhead means roughly a 15% loss before any conversion. ADAC's measurements for socket charging show 10-25% total losses, versus 5-10% on a 7-11 kW wallbox. The same process watts - only at a wallbox they are spread over five times the power and half the hours.

03 · The e-Golf benchmark

That's why the e-Golf did better: its battery is passively cooled - no pumps, no thermal circuit running while plugged in. The Polestar has 78 kWh with full liquid management - necessary for this battery and this power, but you pay for it in watts, night after night.

04 · The consumption

In exchange, the Polestar 2 is surprisingly good: 18.8-19.1 kWh/100 around town, averaging 25 km/h. An e-Golf would do 16-18 kWh in the same conditions - with considerably less weight and a single 100 kW motor. For two tonnes and 421 hp on both axles, the difference is almost an insult to physics.

05 · The garage conclusion

On this car, the 220V socket is an emergency solution, not a routine. The wallbox isn't a luxury - it's math.

So, next up: a 7.4 kW wall charger. I'll be back with impressions after the install - that's exactly what a living dossier is for.

01 · On the road

The sound insulation is decent.

The steering - almost no feedback. Even next to VAG. Not to mention BMW. At least I haven't felt any torque steer.

The car feels heavy, and is - yet body roll is nearly absent. But you have no appetite for pointless acceleration precisely because it feels heavy - and you know that after every sprint you have 2+ tonnes to stop. And that's where all the playfulness ends (which, by the way, an e-Golf has even with its 136 hp) and you settle into serious and calm.

The accelerator is nicely calibrated: at first it doesn't jerk you at all - very friendly and predictable. Press harder - and you understand what 421 hp and over 700 Nm.

02 · The brakes

Strange: brake-by-wire. Under harder braking it bites hard at first, then turns linear - and sometimes you'd swear the discs are warped. They're not.

03 · The modes

No circus of Sport+ and Eco Pro. You configure the one-pedal regeneration (off, low or standard) and the creep - that's it. I drive with regen off and creep on. In stop-and-go traffic though, one-pedal with creep off is excellent: the car stops completely and the brake pedal all but disappears.

Nice detail: during regen the brake lights come on, even if you never touch the pedal.

04 · Multimedia

Mega nice - the first car in the world on Android Automotive, and it shows. It connects to the internet easily, via hotspot or Bluetooth, even though this isn't the European version with a modem on European frequencies. You get Google Maps that knows the battery level, tells you what percentage you'll arrive with, and shows the charging stations along the way.

I've long believed car infotainment should be built by the people who actually know software - Apple, Google. Otherwise millions, if not billions, get thrown at systems the manufacturers bin after a generation or two and replace with a new attempt. Custom skins - yes, anytime. But when you have a solid base for maps, settings and the rest, why not use it and build on top of it?

05 · The ergonomics

Here begin the oddities. The front doors feel too small: with your elbow on the door ledge you have to sit further forward than feels natural - in the natural position, your elbow is already on the B-pillar.

The armrest is odd too: it only slides forward and back. In the e-Golf, by the way, you could tilt it more upright.

The centre console is wrapped in a textile that stains easily. And it matters what kind of foot you have. A short note: the heel-pivot technique has two anchors - heel under the brake, the safety position taught in driving schools (in a panic you stamp straight down, right onto the brake), or heel under the accelerator, comfortable on long drives but risky for exactly the same reason. If you're in the second camp - your knee ends up against the rigid console. Not pleasant at all.

Over 1.80 m? Take a test drive first, to check your driving position. The steering wheel's reach adjustment is fairly short - another 2-3 centimetres and it would have been perfect.

The seats: good that they're ventilated. For adjustments and comfort - above average, not bad. But a properly set BMW sport seat feels sewn onto you. This one doesn't. And that cuts even more of your appetite for entering a corner fast: even though body roll isn't a problem, the seat has little adjustable side support - you end up sliding left and right across the leather. Unpleasant.

And the glossy plastic by the shifter - a collector of fingerprints and micro-scratches. First chance it gets, it will be wrapped in wood-textured film.

Plus the sonic annoyance: the driver's seat-belt anchor squeaks with the seat lowered the way I like it. I've tried silicone - it still creaks. Otherwise, silence.

06 · In the end

And yet, the day-to-day experience is superb in its simplicity: you get in, put it in Drive, go. No start-stop button. At the end - Park, step out, lock. That's all.

The first real trip out of the city: Chișinău - Orheiul Vechi and back, with everything an August day brings. A jam on the way out, good stretches at 90+ on the open road, parked in the sun for a while, 29 degrees outside.

Orheiul Vechi · 08.08.26

01 · The consumption

The surprise of the day: 17.7 kWh/100 km over a 144.2 km route, in nearly four hours, averaging 37 km/h. Less, that is, than it does around town - where the long-term counter sits at 19.1.

On a petrol car, this day would have looked the other way round: the jam and the crawling make it drink. Here, exactly the parts that raise consumption on petrol - standing still, long descents, frequent braking - are the ones that give energy back. And a cruising speed of 90-100 km/h is still below the threshold where aerodynamic drag really starts to count.

The conclusion, for a two-tonne EV with 421 hp and drive on both axles: the figure is good. Not unreally good - just good.

02 · Road manners

Nothing to fault here. Exemplary. It doesn't jump over bumps, it doesn't wander off the line you gave it, it holds its direction without corrections. Well planted. Easy to drive and, above all, relaxing.

It ties straight back to what I wrote at the wheel: it doesn't invite you to drive aggressively. Only that on a long trip, that calm is no longer a complaint - it becomes exactly what you need. You step out after four hours and you aren't tired.

In the socket entry I wrote that the wallbox isn't a luxury, it's math. The day came for the math to be checked: a Victron Energy station, single-phase, 32 A, mounted and commissioned.

01 · The real numbers

The dashboard tells the whole story again - only this time from the other side: 28 km/h charging speed. At the 220V socket, in the heat, it was 2. Fourteen times more, on the same electricity and in the same yard.

The detail that never makes it into brochures: the station draws 31 of its 32 A, but the grid voltage here is 217 V, not 230. That means ~6.7 kW real instead of 7.4 nominal - some 9% lost not at the car, not at the station, but in the line from the street. You can live with that.

02 · Where the process tax went

The 350-500 W the car burns just to stay awake while plugged in haven't disappeared - they are exactly the same. Only now they are spread over three times the power: from ~17% loss at the socket down to ~6%. Precisely the range ADAC gives for a wallbox.

And the time matters as much as the percentage: the same battery fills in hours, not overnight. At 84%, with the limit set to 100%, the car announced the finishing time itself. That is the difference between "I charge the car" and "the car charges".

03 · Why Victron

The choice isn't accidental. Victron is a Dutch company known not for cars but for off-grid and solar systems - inverters, batteries, controllers. Their charging station talks to the rest of that ecosystem: it can be set to charge from the panels' surplus rather than from the grid.

Which closes the loop back to the argument in the prologue: electricity is the only fuel you can produce yourself. The wallbox is the first half of that sentence. The second - the panels - is for another entry.