2024 Polestar 3 Prototype Drive: An Electric Porsche Cayenne Wannabe?
Polestar’s new electric SUV turns up the intensity with 517 hp and a torque-vectoring rear axle.
The first winter with a driver's license is a rite of passage for car enthusiasts raised where it snows. When fresh powder falls, empty parking lots and abandoned industrial parks across the Snowbelt turn into perfect performance-driving training grounds. Breaking a car's tires loose on snow-slicked pavement is a great way to learn the fundamentals of car control at relatively safe, low speeds.
0:00 / 0:00
The 2024 Polestar 3 followed a similar path to mastering driving dynamics. The luxury electric SUV spent the winters of its formative years on frozen lakes and snow-packed proving grounds in the Arctic Circle, where engineers taught it to neatly tuck its nose into corners under braking and gracefully rotate its tail under power.
The 3, which arrives in May at a starting price of $85,300, is a big deal for little Polestar. Along with the smaller Polestar 4 SUV coupe, this five-passenger mid-sizer will grow the brand's lineup from one to three vehicles and, if buyers take notice, deliver a much-needed sales boost. Success would also mean making the Polestar name more widely known and synonymous with performance. The top trim's 517 horsepower should help with that.
The Polestar 3's DNA
Winter in Jokkmokk, Sweden, where Polestar conducts cold-weather testing, can be brutal. In the depths of December, the sun rises for just two hours a day and temperatures can fall well below freezing. Joakim Rydholm, Polestar's head of chassis development, explains why he, his colleagues, and their cars have to endure such harsh conditions: "If it works in -30 degrees [Celsius], it works everywhere. If we have a problem with squeaks or rattles, we easily find it at -30 degrees."
I joined Rydholm on a frozen lake in Jokkmokk on a balmy near-freezing February day for several hours of fun lapping the 3 around handling tracks plowed atop three-foot-thick ice. "When we tune a chassis up here, everything goes in slow motion," says Rydholm, who rallies a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X at race-winning pace in his free time. The slower speeds of low-friction testing give engineers more time to analyze what the suspension and steering are doing at the limits, leading to tuning tweaks that also pay off at higher speeds.
The 3 is armed with seemingly all the chassis tools you can throw at a modern performance SUV. It has dual-chamber air springs, adaptive dampers, tires that are wider at the rear than the front, and a mechanical torque-vectoring rear axle—the first we've seen in an EV for the U.S. market. The Torque-Vectoring Dual Clutch system can send all the rear motor's 361 lb-ft of torque to one wheel or split it between the left and right wheels in any ratio. Driving the outside wheel harder than the inside rotates the car through turns. In the 3's Range mode, the TVDC axle also improves efficiency by opening both clutches to disconnect the rear motor. That helps the 3 earn EPA range ratings of 279 miles for the Performance Pack version and 315 miles for the 489-hp base model.
Aiming High
Polestar engineers cite the Porsche Cayenne as the dynamic benchmark for the 3. They also brag that the big 111.0-kWh battery beneath the floor gives the 3 the same low center of gravity as the discontinued Polestar 1 plug-in-hybrid coupe. Based on the way the 3 corners—with minimal roll and obedient responses to trail braking and power oversteer—they're not blowing smoke.
In most nose-heavy all-wheel-drive SUVs, you correct understeer by brushing the brake pedal. But the Polestar 3 isn't nose heavy. It has a roughly 50:50 weight distribution and that torque-vectoring axle and a rear motor that's more powerful than the front. When Polestar chassis engineer Per Jansson notices me dabbing the brakes to tighten my line mid-corner, he suggests I drive the 3 more like a rear-wheel-drive sports car: When it starts to push, squeeze the accelerator, he says. It works exactly as promised. In a long, late-apex left-hander, the right-rear wheel gets more torque, and the 3 pivots around its midpoint, following the racing line without losing momentum.
Driven at its limits on a frozen lake, the 3 puts a giant, snow-cone-eating grin on my face. The stability control's Off mode doesn't fully remove the safety net but allows drifts big and small. The 3 abides the driver's inputs and provides the constructive feedback to figure out what you did wrong when you miss your line. It's also extremely predictable, giving you plenty of warning before it slides and ample time to catch the drift before it gets away from you.
Ride the Polestar
You might think a frozen lake would be as smooth as a hockey rink, but even three-foot-thick ice heaves and cracks throughout the winter, and the circuits are groomed into a coarse corduroy. The result is a wavy and noisy surface that tests the suspension just as much as the steering and the studded winter tires. In the Standard and Nimble suspension modes, the 3's rear end floats more than a Cayenne's, but that cushy compliance is one of the reasons the Polestar's tires break away so progressively and predictably. The car is playfully neutral without being threatening or difficult to drive. On ice, at least, there's a level of driver engagement that's missing from too many modern performance vehicles.
Admittedly, all this handling dynamics minutia is deep in the weeds for the majority of buyers who will treat snow as a reason to drive their 3 slower, not harder. We suspect, though, that the torque-vectoring rear end will make the SUV a lively partner in the real-world at a spirited but sensible pace, too. The 3 will almost certainly have too much grip and too little torque to power oversteer on dry pavement, but the TVDC should still give the 5,900-pound SUV a sense of agility and cornering precision. Polestar has even programmed a skosh of leniency into the fully active stability control, so that the car moves naturally on top of snow rather than yanking on the brakes to keep the rear tires perfectly in line with the fronts.
The Rest of the Package
The Polestar 3 is the first vehicle built from Volvo's SPA2 architecture, sharing its basic structure, its motors, CATL-supplied batteries, and its cosseting seat frames with the Volvo EX90. All that appears to make for a solid foundation. We do wish that Polestar designers would put more distance between their cars and Volvo's when it comes to exterior styling. While the 3's sheet metal is unique, there's too much familial resemblance in elements like the headlights and faux grille. The designers have done their best work on the inside, imitating Tesla's minimalist aesthetic without making it feel cheap.
Because even a Geo Metro is fun on ice, we'll wait to drive a Polestar 3 on paved roads before we pass full judgment on it. Our early exposure, though, suggests that this new, larger SUV will be sportier and more engaging than the automaker's sole model on sale right now, the Polestar 2. As the next step in establishing Polestar as a serious luxury performance brand, it could be exactly what the company needs.
I fell in love with car magazines during sixth-grade silent reading time and soon realized that the editors were being paid to drive a never-ending parade of new cars and write stories about their experiences. Could any job be better? The answer was obvious to 11-year-old me. By the time I reached high school, becoming an automotive journalist wasn’t just a distant dream, it was a goal. I joined the school newspaper and weaseled my way into media days at the Detroit auto show. With a new driver’s license in my wallet, I cold-called MotorTrend’s Detroit editor, who graciously agreed to an informational interview and then gave me the advice that set me on the path to where I am today. Get an engineering degree and learn to write, he said, and everything else would fall into place. I left nothing to chance and majored in both mechanical engineering and journalism at Michigan State, where a J-school prof warned I’d become a “one-note writer” if I kept turning in stories about cars for every assignment. That sounded just fine by me, so I talked my way into GM’s Lansing Grand River Assembly plant for my next story. My child-like obsession with cars started to pay off soon after. In 2007, I won an essay contest to fly to the Frankfurt auto show and drive the Saturn Astra with some of the same writers I had been reading since sixth grade. Winning that contest launched my career. I wrote for Jalopnik and Edmunds, interned at Automobile, finished school, and turned down an engineering job with Honda for full-time employment with Automobile. In the years since, I’ve written for Car and Driver, The New York Times, and now, coming full circle, MotorTrend. It has been a dream. A big chunk of this job is exactly what it looks like: playing with cars. I’m happiest when the work involves affordable sporty hatchbacks, expensive sports cars, manual transmissions, or any technology that requires I learn something to understand how it works, but I’m not picky. If it moves under its own power, I’ll drive it.
Read More
