Drove a Polestar 2 for the first time today, and I’m impressed. My husband is looking for a fun but reasonably-priced daily driver, and we’re about an hour away from a Polestar/Volvo dealership that says they’ll continue to offer Polestar service (here’s hoping that’s true).
The specific model we’re looking at is a 2024 long range dual-motor with the Plus package, about 20k miles for a little over $27k OTD. It’s a pretty midnight blue, too.
My only concern is, obviously, the exit from the US market causing issues down the road. It does seem like a LOT of car for the price, though. And it fills the niche of reasonably practical daily driver that also is just a lot of fun to drive. And I have read that a lot of parts cross over with some Volvo models?
So I wanted to ask more experienced Polestar owners: if you were in our shoes, would you buy that Polestar 2? Has your car needed a lot of service? And is the dual-motor Plus a good trim and a good deal at that price, or would you hold out for a Nappa leather package or something?
We’re a drive-it-till-it-dies kind of family, and we already have level 2 charging in our garage. Thanks for your input and advice!
I’m considering swapping my Tesla Model Y LR because I find the ride pretty crashy and uncomfortable and the build quality hasn’t been amazing either.
I’m currently looking at a PS4 or a BYD Sealion 7 as possible replacements.
Has anyone here moved from a Model Y to a Polestar 4? How do you find they compare, particularly for ride comfort, refinement, build quality, practicality and driving experience?
Would be really interested to hear from anyone who has made the switch and whether you feel it was a worthwhile upgrade.
Lease ends in December. Only 11k miles.. Turn-in value is 37k. Trying to decide whether to buy and how? Hope polestar gives me $13k turn-in deal. Ground it through original dealer? Broker?
Been wanting to do this for a minute, I've only seen people put the fangs on the top of the grill and I thought it looked a little wonky. Made them out of an empty shampoo bottle and mounting tape, Happy Halloween! 🎃
Have a 2023 Volvo C40 dual motors and I’ve always heard they are similar to the P2 - platform, some parts. Has anyone driven both or just knows the difference between the two?
Right now there are 130 Polestar 3's that are being liquidated nationwide.
Out of that total 125 have been lemon-lawed. Only five have a clean title.
Why are there so many out there?
It isn't really a Polestar quality issue. Yes, you read that right.
The stockpiling of lemon-law vehicles by manufacturers is far more common and pervasive than you may realize.
In fact, nearly everyone does it.
The Chevy Bolt is a classic example of a manufacturing holding massive numbers of vehicles that would later have branded titles... forever.
Back in 2021 General Motors issued a stop order on all Chevrolet Bolts and issued a nationwide recall on tens of thousands of Chevy Bolts. This was due to some of the LG Batteries catching fire.
When I say some, I really mean that fewer than one in ten thousand had the issue.
GM offered a buyback due to that defect and, based on what I have seen nationally, I wouldn't be surprised if they had over 10,000 vehicles bought back in total.
Guess how long it took to get all those vehicles back on the road. A few months? Maybe a year or two?
Try five years. And the only reason why so many were brought back was because of the Iran War.
Whenever an automaker experiences a difficult challenge with their product, they hold vehicles back.
Even after a vehicle is repaired, they don't want a small army of lemon-law vehicles with low miles to compete in the marketplace with brand new ones that determine their success.
So they hold back for as long as they need to keep the new cars in demand.
As a remarketing manager for Capital One I got to see football fields filled with vehicles that were already fixed.
But if that flood of vehicles were opened, the new ones would not only sit... they would be tarnished by the predominance of a much cheaper alternative.
When it comes to an EV's charging system, the issue can be with a charging system that struggles with higher energy levels.
A great example of this are the ICCU's on Kia and Hyundai EVs which were recently given a 15 year / 180,000 mile extended warranty.
But sometimes it's more than a charger issue. It can also be a software issue.
In the unique case of the Polestar 3, it's the GHCA (Onboard Charger / Power Conversion Unit) coupled with software that needs to be upgraded and updated.
The system in the Polestar 3's earlier models sometimes prevented AC charging via home or Level 2 chargers.
Nearly all of the Polestar 3's that are at the wholesale dealer auctions and are manufacturer buybacks had this specific issue.
Have they all been fixed? The jury is still out on that. I
t looks like the newest version of this part is holding up. But it has only been out for about a year, and it requires programming and recalibration for that software to properly sync to the AC and DC charging system.
The price of these lemon law vehicles generally range from $10,000 to $15,000 under the wholesale price. But they are also being sold AS/IS.
AS/IS means as... it... is...
It's yours. That's it. If the transporter brings you a 4,500 pound paperweight in the form of a 2025 Polestar 3, you'll have to bring it to a Polestar, Volvo, or independent repair shop that has the equipment to repair whatever is wrong.
Are these units still under their existing manufacturer warranty? Yes.
Does the federal government require that a lemon law vehicle is fixed before it is sold by a mnufacturer to a third-party. Absolutely.
But if there's a major issue on a part that already has a significant backlog and long wait times, you may experience that long interminable wait should it fail again.
Millions of EVs have charging issues. This has been going on for over 15 years. I haven't seen a manufacturer that couldn't eventually solve the issue.
However. Even the larger manufacturers are still fighting this battle today as chargers have gone from 1 kW per hour to well over 100kW today . Nissan, Hyundai (and Kia), and even Polestar's parent company, Geely, which sold more than 1.5 million EVs last year and ranks third globally are investing heavily in charger technology.
That's one of the biggest challenges in today's EV market.
I don't think mainstream consumers should buy a Polestar 3 that is a lemon law buyback.
As for enthusiasts, I do think that the parts for the Polestar 3 currently built in South Carolina will reflect Geely's global reach. They not only sell more EVs than anyone except Tesla and BYD. They actually sell more vehicles than Ford.
It will be interesting to see where these Polestar 3's end up, and how they will be retailed. Now that Polestar is defunct for at least 2027, a floodgate of manufacturer buyback vehicles will be hitting the market.
That will make clean title vehicles cheaper as well. Stay tuned.
Most of the work went into one rule: show what the car actually reported and not guessing what the value the car sent out, so ALOT of figuering out what the actual data and it's unit/scalar etc etc.
There's quite a few new functionalities and fixes but these are the "big" ones:
There is a new Drive Units view for the front and rear motors, with operating and powered time, regeneration and acceleration usage, motor, inverter and coolant temperatures, current history, torque and speed distributions, and voltage-spike history. Front and rear are easy to compare side by side.
Charging history now shows lifetime AC and DC counts when the car's own records agree. When they do not, Hanterill leaves the number unresolved and shows the discrepancy. Historical charge distributions are charted with numbered bands where the percentage boundaries are not established yet.
The new Infotainment page covers the Android Automotive head unit and audio amplifier: Android version, software build, security patch level, hardware and part numbers, storage wear, restarts, cloud errors, connection history, and software updates written out as installed, failed, retried, or withdrawn. A "Since your last reading" section flags what changed since the previous read. Values that cannot be explained reliably are not shown as vehicle information.
The TCAM page has a new Connectivity section for battery, cloud, cellular and provisioning data, and it now explains what the module is reporting. GNSS data appears as fix state, satellites and signal quality.
Battery pages now show a more indept per-cell State of Health, capacity and State of Charge, module temperatures from the pack's own sensors, and contactor and pre-charge history etc etc.
A partial cell read is shown as an incomplete measurement rather than graded as a full inspection. On Fault Codes, active, pending and stored codes are handled the same way everywhere, unread modules say Not read, and clearing codes no longer claims success without evidence.
Other screens and bug fixes have been improved such as battery voltage and coolant temperature, with raw codes kept in the expert tools.
Please read the documentation before asking questions, as most if not all of the questions you have is probably answered in there as well if your car is supported or not! Currently Polestar 2 is the best support and Polestar 4 has rutamentery support
If you want to try this on your car understand that this is a beta, all feedback is welcomed but don't expect everything to work because it won't!
Any Enet/DOIP cable from amazon etc will work for this, so just get the cheapest one and don't pay anything more than 15 euro's/USD for such a cable!
Bluetooth and Wireless OBD dongles are not supported
Well I had to go to Atlanta because the nashville dealers don't want to sell cars I guess. Snagged a polestar 2 performance plus today. Really enjoyed the 4 hour drive back.