Living with a... Polestar 2 (Month 2)

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Month 1 | Hello again Polestar 2, it's been a while Month 2 | I lost a whole car... thanks, Polestar

I'm a Geordie with a wife and teenage kids and a dog and a mortgage and other responsibilities. But I'm also a man desperately trying to maintain the facade of being young and interesting... yep, that's a box-died blonde fauxhawk. I'm 44. At weekends I use my car to take the kids to their social engagements, or to take parts of my drumkit to band practice, or to take myself to places like the Metty in Gateshead. Sometimes I drive to the AT offices, too (Manchester/London), which means I can enjoy getting vexed about the truly atrocious standard of driving on the UK's motorways. Like any young and interesting person would.

Mark says: "In 2021 I drove 1200 miles around the Scottish highlands in one of these. Hated the trip, loved the car. Let’s see if I still love it in 2025. There are a lot more EVs these days."

How much has it cost you?

It’s funny, but because cars are getting so expensive now – including the newer Polestars – the 2 here feels like better value with every year that passes. So this one here is basically £56k. A lot of money, aye, but it’s got almost 500 horsepower, is genuinely RAPID, has special chassis tuning, good battery range (352 miles, officially) and won’t cost too much to run. By comparison, it’s £62k for a BMW M340i these days. That's a 3 Series with 100 horsepower less than this and 30mpg running costs.

Where have you been?

Not that far, yet. Mainly just doing the normal rounds (Starbucks and Maccies drive-thru, train station runs, the shops and that) and introducing the kids to “their new car”. They both like it, unlike the last one – our bright green Skoda, which my son liked but my daughter was embarrassed by. This one’s cool, apparently. They like the colour. As do I. It’s the only Polestar 2 colour I actually like, tbh, because if there’s one thing more vexing than Polestar’s touchscreen, it’s the utter dullness of the paint colour selection. It's called Vapour. If you need to remember the name, just think about every teenager you ever saw with an Elf bar hanging out of their gob.

What have you been carrying?

People, dogs, Starbucks lids, empty Greggs bags... standard. Nothing that the Polestar can’t deal with. And even though it looks like a saloon, it’s actually a hatchback, so we’re expecting it to be very drum-friendly. It even has a small front trunk; it’s a little frunky, you might say. If you need to remember that, just think about Flea from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

Delights?

Yeah, it’s really quick. When Polestar asked which Polestar I wanted, I said I wanted the fastest Polestar. So here we are. Anyone would do the same, right? The good thing is, unlike some fast electric cars, the wheels and suspension can actually handle all the torque very non-dramatically. There's 740Nm of it, which to give you a reference point is 150Nm MORE than a Porsche 911 Turbo has. Yikes. It follows that this is genuinely one of those cars that’s probably very easy to go too fast in, because it gets to high speed so effortlessly, and feels so relaxed when it gets there. Probably.

Frustrations?

Is it so good that it’s boring? I’m, still figuring that out. My own car, an SUV, has 360 horsepower – a lot, but a lot less than this – and it’s nowhere near as quick, but the noise and the drama make it feel much more exciting than the Polestar is. We’ll discuss this more when I’ve made my mind up. We’ll also discuss the touchscreen a lot, because I’m 76 percent certain I hate it.

This month in a nutshell

Fast Polestar is flawed but I like it a lot. The next 6 months will be interesting. Back to top

Mark says: "I nearly crashed into a BMW iX that I couldn’t see. It was mostly the Polestar’s fault. I'll explain...”

How much has it cost you?

*checks Pod Point app* Car charging during the month of April cost me £87.89 for 394kWh. That’s 22p per kWh, and the car’s giving me about 2.5 miles per kW, so about 9p per mile. For reference, an Aston Martin DB9 V12 has 470 horsepower – same as the Polestar – and returns 17mpg, officially. Let’s be generous and say that’s 15mpg IRL. Today, a gallon of fuel costs £6.30. Therefore, the Aston costs 42p per mile. Oof.

Where have you been?

Here, there and everywhere. The 2 is our family car, so it’s doing daily commute for Nicola Nichol (about 20 miles), evening trips to Starbucks (it’s weird that it costs way more to buy an unpronounceable beverage at Starbucks than it does actually getting there in a 470-horsepower car)… the usual. Apart from nearly sideswiping a BMW. Oh damn.

What have you been carrying?

A sense of relief. Relief that I didn’t actually hit the BMW.

Delights?

It’s delightful that I didn’t hit the BMW. (Did I mention I nearly hit a BMW.) Alright. I’ll get on with it now…

Frustrations?

To explain the incredible artwork above (prints available soon from the Tik-Tok shop), #1 is where I started, #2 is where I ended up after a U-Turn, and #3 is the BMW iX that was in the absolutely enormous over-the-shoulder blind spot that the Polestar’s tiny rear screen and massive c-pillars produce. I hastily pulled out, right in front of the BMW. Oops. It just ploughed on, nonchalantly, leaving me to drive on the wrong side of the road for a few yards before I could speed up and pull in front of it. In fairness, it wasn’t actually that dramatic. And the BMW driver was very nonplussed about the whole thing (surprised, eh?). And I was very arm-wavingly apologetic, instead of doing that man thing where the man in the wrong swears a lot and speeds off, blaming everyone but himself. Even though I've kind of blamed the car for all this. It was my fault, really – I know this. I went too soon. But I did genuinely lose the whole massive car in the blind spot, and it’s frequently vexing just how poor the Polestar’s rear visibility is. Maybe Polestar did it on purpose as low-key priming for the Polestar 4?

This month in a nutshell

I sort of nearly crashed a bit, but otherwise, Polestar is brilliant… apart from ride quality. But we’re going to fix that soon. See you next time. Back to top