It’s happened to us at the office a few times especially over the winter: one of us has to run a long-range errand, we only have EVs around the office, and none of them can make the journey. Or, to be clear, they can’t make the journey comfortably without having to hope you can find a working fast charger that’s available and happens to be on the way. For me, the 2025 Polestar 3 is the first vehicle I’ve taken way beyond city limits and back—and didn’t worry about it.
Real-world range and charging
I wasn’t babying it, either. The journey was mostly highway, with cruise control set to 125 km/h, which unlike gas vehicles, uses a disproportionately large amount of energy. It was cool out, so the heat was running, it was still wearing inefficient snow tires, and the 25-speaker Bowers & Wilkins sound system was blasting the entire time. Volvo and Polestar’s range estimator algorithm can seem wonky with wild swings of optimism and pessimism, as average energy use resets following a charge cycle. It proved to be very accurate over a long haul, if just a tiny bit negative, as it probably should be.
I left the office with a full charge, went home and kept the Polestar 3 unplugged overnight, skipped town the following morning, and returned back to the office having covered 316 kilometers and wrapping up with 20 per cent of juice left in the 111 kWh battery, showing an estimated 80 km of range left. Volvo estimates this Polestar 3, a loaded dual-motor model with the Performance package boosting output to 510 horsepower 671 pound-feet of torque, should be able to run for 449 kilometers on a single charge. The fact that I was able to get pretty close to that, despite so much working against the Polestar 3 on this journey, is commendable.
If I did have to stop and charge, this new platform—shared with the Volvo EX90, and built at the same plant in South Carolina—supports DC fast-charging up to 250 kW, allowing for a 10-to-80 per cent charge in as little as half an hour. This would have allowed me to roughly double my journey without much delay. I wouldn’t have minded that at all, as the Polestar 3 is a lovely thing to pilot.
What’s the Polestar 3 like inside?
The cabin borrows a lot of DNA from Volvo’s new and newly minimalistic design ethos, as seen on vehicles like the EX90 and EX30. Unlike them, there is a distinct focus on fulfilling its mission statement of being “the SUV that drives like a sports car” with it’s low-slung greenhouse. Being that it’s priced and positioned roughly alongside the Porsche Macan Electric and BMW’s updated iX, there’s a keen focus on top-shelf style and decadent materials. It feels right at home among a tough crowd. Everything looks fantastic and feels excellent.
The centerpiece inside is a floating 14.5-inch touchscreen display, powered by the same Android Automotive software deployed in other recent Volvos. In the past, Volvo and Polestar used different user interfaces with their infotainment systems, and I was wondering how they’d differentiate themselves this time around from the new software suite that Volvo’s so proud of. They didn’t; it uses the same home screen dominated by Google Maps, stacked on top of media and phone shortcut tiles, a smattering of adaptive shortcuts, and climate controls.
It sounds busy—and it is—but they avoided making it feel cluttered. A small wide-format screen acting a gauge cluster alleviates a lot of the headaches we had with the Volvo EX30 and its very similar arrangement. It functions as a map display or a readout of the Polestar 3’s LIDAR sensor array, which is an impressive bit of tech on its own; it senses traffic and sees lane markings with almost unparalleled accuracy, even in adverse conditions. Volvo’s Pilot Assist, now with the capacity to change lanes thanks to this trick hardware, works incredibly well, but it’s still not quite as slick as BMW’s implementation of Assist Plus.
Tech impressions: pretty to look at, frustrating to use
The Polestar 3 is a smartly designed car, but there were times when I wondered if it was maybe a little too smart for its own good. While the infotainment interface looks great and generally performs well, it was a little frustrating to have core functions, like seat, mirror, and steering wheel adjustment relegated to the screen. Vehicle preferences like the aforementioned mirror positions are each tied to a user profile that can be paired to a credit card key fob or a phone, which sounds nice in theory, but I really wish it had a quick way to save and recall seat memory.
I also wish opening the glovebox wasn’t buried in the same setting menu, and I would like if it worked—because it didn’t. Similarly, the integrated Spotify app, which was brilliant for the first couple days, randomly decided that the rather important “Now Playing” window wasn’t going to work anymore or ever again, forcing me to back out to the home screen to see what I was listening to and skip songs. Come to think of it, it’s also a little frustrating that the steering wheel controls can’t control the sound system at all. Only a Google search revealed that holding the Play/Pause button for a long time—like, 30-plus seconds—will reset the infotainment and cure what ails it. I I knew this sooner to get the most out of the sound system.
Bowers & Wilkins audio is always the best around, and the Polestar 3’s system is no different. It ended up being my favourite part of the car when Spotify wasn’t being dense. This system is a work of art, boasting 1,610 watts of power, crisp highs and punchy lows, and hugely aided by a very low sound floor, as the cabin is incredibly well-insulated. It has multiple sound stage configurations, and a classic equalizer for those that really want to fine-tune things for perfection.
Driving and living with the Polestar 3
On the topic of fine-tuning, there’s a lot of customization built into how the Polestar 3 drives. The adaptive air suspension has three modes and can be raised or lowered on command, the steering can be adjusted from “basically weightless” to “light,” the electric motors can be tweaked for urgency or relaxation, and the traction control can be even dialed back to allow some leeway. No matter how you set it all up, the Polestar 3 is satisfying to helm, with driver controls that inspire confidence and feel right in their careful calibration.
It makes good on its promise of feeling like a sports car. A very big, eerily quiet sports car, maybe, but a fun driver nonetheless. Power delivery is instant and abundant, able to snap from zero to 100 km/h in four seconds, and the chassis feels well-dialed to handle it all with grace. The steering is direct, the chassis is communicative, it feels fairly well balanced, and it’ll even break into a gentle glide around its axis if you really hammer it—you know, like a sports car. The Macan Electric is maybe a little more lively at the limit but it’s not leagues better, nor does it have an answer to the Polestar’s substantial power advantage. At least not in the same price bracket.
When you’re not driving it like a sports car, the Polestar 3 rides exceptionally well, even on our tester’s massive 22-inch wheels. It’s thoroughly quiet, and as expected for anything tied to Volvo, the seats are excellent. There’s loads of room in every dimension, though only the cargo area is perhaps a little too tight for its footprint as a result of its shooting-brake shape. But it’s nonetheless practical, and once you’ve taken the time to learn its software idiosyncrasies—which can be patched out via over-the-air updates—it’s rather delightful to live with and seemingly good at everything.
Final thoughts
In Canada, pricing starts at $96,000 and maxes out at $115,200 as-tested for this fully loaded model—which is rather reasonable in this realm. Despite existing alongside some serious heavy hitters from the best in the business, the upstart 2025 Polestar 3 comfortably holds its own, save for the odd quirk here and there. There’s an argument to be made that some of that quirkiness and Polestar’s unique way of doing things is part of its charm as a boutique, relatively low-volume luxury vehicle. Either way, I’d be happy to keep it around, if only to jet out of town on a whim over and over again.
