Polestar 3 first look: Possibly the best looking new EV for 2023

Following its official reveal late last year, Polestar recently brought its first EV SUV – the Polestar 3 – to New York City for its North American debut. However, while it shares the same underlying platform as the Volvo EX90, Polestar has adjusted its design to create what might be the best-looking new EV slated to go on sale in 2023. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take it for a drive, but we were able to get a closer look at its styling and some of the fancy tech and features the Polestar will have when it starts hitting the road later this year in Q4.

Video transcript

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- Late last year, Polestar announced its third or its fourth new car depending on how you're counting. And while we weren't able to go to the launch in Europe, today, Polestar brought the Polestar 3 here to New York for its north American debut. And as soon as I heard that, I knew we had to come check it out. Because this thing might be the best looking new EV of 2023.

Now, apologies for going a little bit fast. We have a limited amount of time with the car. But I want to do a quick recap of Polestar's history.

Now, Polestar's first car was the Polestar 1, which was a plug-in EV. It was more of a two-seater hybrid. So not really all that practical.

And then after that, they came out with the Polestar 2, which was kind of a blend between a crossover, and a tall sedan. But it was a full battery electric vehicle. But now, we have the Polestar 3. And the Polestar 3 shares a platform with Volvo's EX90. So similar base.

Now, as you can see, here the base model has a 111 kilowatt hour battery. About 108-110 of that is usable. And even though it has a really big battery, you might not get quite as much range as you expect.

It'll be available in two models. The base model is a long range dual motor model. And it gets 360 kilowatt motors.

But there's also a performance package that gets slightly more powerful 380 kilowatt motors. So normally, you're looking at about 300 miles of range, and the performance is going to get a little less than that because it has bigger 22-inch wheels, and those more powerful motors.

This car looks amazing. And it's got a really interesting approach to modern design. There's almost a little bit of like typography focus with the car. Because as you can see, we have the Polestar name, the Polestar 3 right here, and it's labeled with the battery.

But this kind of typography and transparency is something you can see throughout the car. So in front, instead of a standard grille, we have what Polestar is calling its smart zone sensor cluster. So that's where you're going to see stuff like the forward facing camera. And there's also other sensors for lane control, and car detection kind of hidden beneath there.

Now, another interesting design feature is that the Polestar 3 has two wings. Now there's one in the back. But there's also one that's kind of hidden up front. You can see it goes right through, and then also in the back.

Obviously, because this thing is an EV, aerodynamics matters a lot. So this front wing should help improve power efficiency overall. So you get a little bit more mileage from that big battery.

So another thing I want to talk about is the Polestar 3 headlights. Now as you can see here, we have an updated interpretation of Polestar's Thor's hammer design. And it's a two-bladed design. So you have the top section right here, and obviously, the bottom section down here.

But another thing is that a lot of people when we talk about smartphones, we talk about the size of the camera sensor in megapixels, but interestingly, the Polestar 3 is headlamps also has a 1.3 megapixel sensor, which uses a DLP projector, and a bunch of mirrors inside, so it can react, and focus the headlights depending on how you're driving say if you're going around a curvy road.

So as you can see here, we have a very flush design for the door handles. Once again, that's kind of to help with aerodynamics. It's pretty easy to use. You stick your hand in and lift up.

Right here, the kind of a subtle design feature is that Polestar is using frameless side view mirrors on the Polestar 3, which once again, helps with aerodynamics and fuel efficiency. And then moving around to the side, we have a very traditional placement for the charging port as you can see here. On the Polestar 3, we're looking at 250-kilowatt DC charging, which is good, but not quite as speedy as what you get on say like the Hyundai IONIQ 5, which is rated for about 350 kilowatt fast-charging. That said, charging speeds are still pretty good. With Polestar saying, we can expect about 10 to 80% battery in about 30 minutes.

And so now, we're here in the back. And you can see there's a huge light bar that runs across the back of the car. You also have really aggressive styling and back with these haunches.

And if you look at it, the roof isn't quite as high as you might expect for a standard SUV. And that's because even though it shares a platform with the Volvo EX90, the Polestar 3 is only going to be available with two rows of seats. And on top of that, they extended the wheelbase. So it's a little bit longer to make the cabin inside.

Now, that does come with a little bit of trade off in terms of storage. So the trunk isn't as huge as you might expect compared to something like the BMW iX. But that's because they really want to make it feel luxurious and roomy inside, especially for those second row passengers.

So let me get in. And we can actually find out how it feels to sit inside the back of the Polestar 3. Now as you can probably tell, I'm not a small guy. I'm about 6 foot tall, and I have plenty of legroom. Just look at this how much space I have.

And there's a big fixed sunroof in here. And you know, it's really spacious. I'm not worried about headroom at all. I'm not worried about legroom.

But one interesting thing is that when you sit-in the back of this car, I noticed that you're kind of sitting more in a reclined position as opposed to a standard SUV. We're sitting more upright, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It's kind of relaxed. You can kind of-- you have room to kind of recline, and lay out, which actually, I kind of really appreciate.

There's also one little interesting detail on the seatbelts that you can see. You can see it says since 1959, which is a callback to when Volvo first introduced seatbelts on a production car. So it's a really interesting touch. And it kind of points to Polestar's lineage with its parent company Volvo, and also geely, which doesn't why get as much attention.

So now, we're in the driver's seat of the Polestar 3. And this is a pretty good time to talk about tech. Because it's clear that Polestar has really invested a lot into the technology of this car, whether we're talking about radars, or even just the infotainment center.

So let's start right here. As you can see, the Polestar 2 was one of the first cars to feature android automotive as its base infotainment system. And we have a continuation of that here, again, on the Polestar 3.

Here we have a 14.5 inch touchscreen. And for anyone who's used a Google navigation system, it's super intuitive and easy to use. Now, I should say that the car isn't fully on. So we can't really interact with the touchscreen like you normally would.

But you still get Google maps as your default mapping system, and the Google assistant, and all the touch free controls that offers. You can also see right behind the steering wheel, there's a little bitty instrument cluster, which is really nice because it does just enough to like get what you need to do. You can see maps, or your speed, and stuff like that. But you don't get a huge instrument cluster and a huge hood like you do on a traditional ice car.

You still feel really nice and spacious. Even though, especially in the front, it's more of a cockpit type feel. So you kind of feel cocooned. But without feeling claustrophobic.

If you pull this back right here, you get two-handy cup holders, and then you have your built-in wireless charging pad right there. And there are a couple of USB-C ports hidden up front, and there's two more in back. So regardless of where you're sitting, you're going to have a pretty accessible easy reach for charging your smartphones, tablets, whatever.

So one of the other things I want to talk about is all the sensors that are in this car. Polestar tells me there are 12 ultrasonic sensors. Five radars, five cameras, two driver monitoring sensors, and four interior radars.

And those interior radars are really interesting. Because similar to the Volvo EX90, those radars are going to be used for passenger and occupancy detection, which will prevent say, hey, you leave your kid in the backseat of the car, the car will actually not allow you to lock it. It'll keep the climate control on to make sure that whoever is in the back.

And it could even be a pet is safe. And they won't overheat if they actually get left in the car. There's a sensor in the rearview mirror. There are a couple more on either side. And there's even one in the trunk. So regardless of where you're sitting, or where your dog might be sitting, there going to be covered.

There's also some capacitive touch controls built into the wheel. But unfortunately, we can't turn the car 100% on right now. So you know, this is as good as it gets for the moment. Another interesting integration with android automotive is that because the Polestar 3 can pull data from Google maps like charging stations, it can better plan your routes, so you know when to stop, when you need to recharge.

And on top of that, it'll even pre-condition the battery. So you get those optimal charging speeds when you finally do pull over. Finally, I want to talk a little bit about sustainability.

Because Polestar is being really aggressive in their plans to make a carbon neutral car, a fully carbon neutral car by 2030. And that plays into a lot of the different factors. For example, the interior.

Now, here we have a leather interior, which is kind of the upgraded trim. But there's also going to be a vegan interior that's made out of what Polestar calls a micro tech material. And it's a plant-based vinyl. Because instead of being derived from petroleum or oil based sources, they're using a pine oil material to make that vegan vinyl.

Another interesting thing is that Polestar is also using a composite flax fiber material in places like the seats and on the interior of the door. And they say that it's about the same strength as carbon fiber, but it's 40% lighter than plastic. So you're getting that really great strength of lightness and durability.

And this is interesting because we've seen this on other cars. But we've also seen more recently on the Lenovo Z13. So there is a little bit of that crossover between your consumer electronics, and something more forward-facing and kind of massive like the Polestar 3.

So one more piece of the Polestar 2 is kind of tech puzzle is that while it's not available on this particular model, Polestar is planning on having a optional pilot pack that will include support for a lidar sensor that will sit right above the windshield. And that will allow for various semi-autonomous and autonomous driving functions when they become available. And they will also come with an Nvidia or a processor to help support all those autonomous driving functions.

Also, I know it's a really small kind of weird thing. But I kind of love how this car comes with pillows that you can just throw in the back seat. It really adds to that lounge feel.

So now, we're back outside because we ran out of time we got kicked out. But I think from what we've seen so far, the car looks incredible. But it's not just that. It's got a really interesting and sophisticated tech package too.

I also had a chance to talk with one of Polestar's execs. And she told me that even though the Polestar 3 shares the same platform with the EX90 and a lot of its components, the two cars feel completely different. And after sitting inside, I can really see what she's talking about.

Because of its two-row design, it feels so much roomier on the inside, and then it has that extended wheelbase. So it's really more of a true luxury EV SUV.

Now that said, I do have a couple of concerns. Even though it has a huge 111 kilowatt hour battery, you only get about 300 miles of range. Now, Polestar says it hasn't been officially certified. So that number might change as we get closer to its official release.

But even so, compared to something like the Tesla Model Y, that thing has a 75 kilowatt hour battery. And you're getting about 330 miles of range, which is way longer than what you're getting from the Polestar 3.

Now, the other concern is that price. The standard Polestar 3, the long range dual motor version is going to start at around $84,000. That's 30,000 about more than a Tesla Model Y. So that's talking a big chunk of change.

That means the Polestar 3 rivals are more in the range of the BMW iX or the Audi e-tron. And in an already really crowded market for luxury EV SUVs, that could make it kind of difficult for Polestar to carve out a niche for the three. And that's before we even talk about the even more expensive performance pack, which starts at just under $90,000.

Even so, I can't wait to take this thing out for a real drive. And hopefully, we'll be able to test this thing out for real pretty soon. Because the Polestar 3 is going to officially go on sale sometime later this year in Q4.

But that's it for me today. If you're looking for more car coverage, stay tuned to Engadget because the New York auto show is right around the corner. And as always, don't forget the comment, like, and stay tuned to Engadget for more news, reviews, and videos real soon.

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