Polestar 4 2025: bet everything without looking back

Born of Volvo, which recently cut the financial umbilical cord connecting the two brands, Polestar is currently shaping its own destiny. Gathering a few good steps will be necessary to grab a share of the pie in the electricity market, which is not without its surprises and twists and turns.

Polestar wants at all costs to stand out from the crowd, but history has taught us that high-priced electric sports cars and utility vehicles are not enough to increase its production and ensure its profitability. It is also important to collect cars in large quantities.

After being generously funded by a banking consortium for more than one billion dollars last month, Polestar is betting everything and is devoting itself to the sport with its fourth creation: the utility vehicle Polestar 4 This translates into a happy medium sedan 2 and SUV 3. Although he has a lot of respect for his older brother in terms of style, this newbie still hides a few cards up his sleeve.

Car Guide traveled to Sweden to the Hällered test center near Gothenburg to briefly test a pre-production Polestar 4 prototype.

Photo: Polestar

A good compromise… without a rear window

In terms of dimensions, the Polestar 4 is a few inches less in length, width and height compared to the Polestar 3. But what is noticeable is that its wheelbase is about 30 cm longer than the Polestar 2 and that its center of gravity is lower. than that of the Polestar 1. In short, the manufacturer made a compromise by tapping into what the range had to offer.

Another thing that stands out: if its front shield is inspired by that of its brother 3, it is a completely different story at the back, where we have adopted a cut job without a rear window. As an alternative, a high-definition camera mounted on top broadcasts an image to the interior rearview mirror.

Why did we take this direction? On the one hand, Polestar wanted to ride the wave of “coupe” utility vehicles that were very popular in the German camp. But this configuration comes with its compromises, mainly because of the rear window. Deleting the second one therefore made it possible to provide more sleeping rooms for passengers in the back.

Polestar has also bet on a battery of renewable materials where crude oil leaves pine oil and fishing nets recovered from the sea are used to make fabrics and insert into the passenger compartment. Without being luxurious, Polestar manages to retain the simple yet elegant character of its other models while offering the comfort worthy of the name. On the other hand, physical control is rare;

Our brief test at the race track did not require a good rear view. A test in city conditions will allow us to determine if the camera game is worth the effort, but a few reverse maneuvers in the pits revealed to us that an adaptation period will be required for future users. It can also confuse rear passengers who are used to seeing daylight when turning.

Cavalry and kWh more than enough, smooth and predictable driving

The Polestar 4 rides on the same SEA (Sustained Experience Architecture) platform as the Polestar 3, but the battery powering it is slightly smaller. Its capacity is 100 kWh, instead of 111 kWh. Two configurations are offered, one with a single motor on the rear axle (RWD) and the other with two motors (AWD). The first offers 272 horsepower and the second 544 horsepower. The EPA rating says that the first variant can travel 300 miles and the second 270 miles. In terms of charging, Polestar promises a power of up to 200 kW and a current terminal of one for a fast one with 11 kW in changing current.

On the track, the Polestar 4 exhibits a smooth and predictable ride. Even if its weight is surprising at almost 2.3 tons, the twin-engine model managed to have a surprisingly stable format. On the other hand, the engineers seem to have positioned the brake pedal well in favor of a satisfactory balance of performance/reformability.

If the all-wheel drive is equipped with shock absorbers as standard and the single-engine model has a good traditional suspension, we have no sense of loss of comfort or changes in the second version. An observation that speaks volumes for Polestar’s chassis design prowess.

While the first copies of the Polestar 3 are slow to be released and the manufacturer is struggling to ensure its growth, is the 4 card expected from the dealer to have a capable hand to compete at the big table? If it has set itself the mission of balancing comfort, sophistication and performance to reach a wide pool of buyers, at first glance, it seems to be successful.

Deliveries to the Canadian market are expected to begin in late 2024. Prices will be announced soon.