Polestar 2 Long Range Dual Motor Review (2024)

Just when Tesla started shipping massive numbers of Model 3s and people were wondering if there was an alternative, Polestar came up with the 2. Not a crossover, not a sedan, not quite a hatchback, but something interesting in between. Capable powertrains, familiar controls, some of Volvo’s best known features sprinkled on top and presto: an EV that everyone will want to own.

That must have been the trick four years ago, and so it happened: the Polestar 2 took off. Then the time to move on to other models took years. We don’t fully understand that strategy.

This has changed on the Polestar 2 after the update

Like the platform mate Volvo (X) C40, Polestar 2 has recently received a major update. It’s now faster, travels further on a charge and basically has rear-wheel drive instead of front-wheel drive. You don’t see much of this, as we’ve seen before in the single-engine version.

For this test we have the top 2 with us: big battery, two motors, Performance Pack. It looks good with its golden yellow accents, but the overall face – you recognize it immediately, because the grille has disappeared – is not a development in our opinion. The original tasted better. In addition, on our test car, someone found it necessary to put a sticker and do with the model, the size of the battery (82 kWh) and the power in kW (350) behind the front wheels. Strange.

But what a convincing package this is. The Polestar 2 Long Range Dual Motor is beautifully put together and the technology shines through with simplicity and ease of use. You can easily give your grandma a digital one: very simple, clear and easy to use infotainment on the road, good voice recognition (according to Google, that’s what you get), driving aids that stay away when you want them and a seat. and steering wheel heating who will continue to turn on the fire without stopping if you want – relief. This is how every modern car should work.

The Polestar 2 takes performance seriously

It is very fast in a useful way. The trap is sought and found immediately, even in the extreme cold in which we drive it. Hunting and overtaking is its game, but because of its silence (no spaceship sound) and quietness, these 2 are also good at covering distance. It’s quite bony in its chassis, but that may also have been due to the placement of the manually adjustable Öhlins dampers. We didn’t feel like we had frozen fingers for a while.

That’s how you can get there with the Polestar 2 Long Range Dual Motor

On our drive from Amsterdam to Paris and back, the Polestar proves to be a great companion. In addition to the WLTP value, the actual range is now also predicted (in our case 350 km, due to cold and highway speed) and the navigation gives you a choice of suitable plug points on the way, including charging hours/battery percentages that you can maintain to to get faster to your destination.

Apart from these dikformaarshow driver aids are out of place. The adaptive cruise control sometimes applies the brakes unnecessarily and – again, in a skid – we are faced with wild steering intervention if the blind spot detection thinks it is seeing something that is not there. Self-driving cars are going to be a big thing, right? We still have a long way to go.

However: leave those cyber bungles as they are and with this Polestar 2 you have an EV that feels modern from front to back. And that’s for a model that’s been around for years. Polestar will finally come up with all-new things in 2024; that can be done, because the bar is high.