Overnight charging wasn’t possible at any destination, so I made a similar stop on the return leg to get home with range to spare. I awoke in my own bed the next day to 100%.
This ease of use has all been thanks to the 3’s charging speed, which has allowed me to make those long journeys as I would have done in a petrol car. This isn’t proving to be as much of a problem as it could be, however, because the 3’s charging speed is so quick. Its maximum rate is 250kW, and I’m regularly seeing upwards of 190kW from the fast chargers at motorway services.
You would still want better efficiency, of course, but this is a 510bhp machine with ‘Performance’ in its name. There are still some very welcome forms of progress in the 3.
Update 3
You can tell how in demand the Polestar 3 has been by looking at the text messages on my phone. As predominantly a WhatsApp user, the old-fashioned SMS app is one I rarely use, so most recent contacts have something in common: they’ve been sent a digital key to the 3.
Yes, yes, the key again, or rather the lack of a physical key… In short, nobody who has driven the 3 likes the lack of a physical key with lock and unlock buttons. I’ll spare you a blow-by-blow account of deputy editor Felix Page’s particularly negative experience with it, but I will share his sign-off.
“I used to lend my old 1972 VW Beetle to a mate every so often, and while I did indeed have to send him something beforehand, it was only a text to say the key was under the blue flowerpot by the side gate. How far we’ve come.” Quite.
Thankfully, the second and dominant impression of the 3 that has come back is just how good it is to drive. Classic & Sports Car editor-in-chief Alastair Clements had a go, and during a phone call to let me know that he had eventually got in after the key didn’t work and the car wouldn’t unlock, he went on to remark that when he did get going, the 3 felt like a second-generation Jaguar I-Pace in its execution.
“There’s that same quiet authority to the ride, which is pretty much as good as any modern on huge rims that I’ve driven,” he told me. “And it’s dynamically much more interesting than a Volvo, with nicely fluid steering and good balance for such a big car.”
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