My Polestar 2 One Year Review
I purchased my 2021 Polestar 2 on March 31, 2025. It’s now essentially been one year since then, so it is time to give a review of how that first year has gone.
tldr; This Polestar 2 is my favorite and so far, best car I’ve ever owned. I’d definitely buy one again.
As I am writing this my Polestar 2 is at 36098 miles. When I bought it, it had about 25500 miles. So in one year I’ve put over 10,000 miles on it. That’s a lot for me! In fact, it is the most miles I’ve driven any car in a year. I work from home, so don’t have a commute that puts on miles. Instead, I’ve accumulated these miles because I just like driving it everywhere!
I don’t take it on long road trips, I just drive it regularly. My longest trips with it, that I have done several times, have been to Boston and Bangor, both in the 200 to 240 mile round-trip range.
Styling
I still get a smile on my face every time I walk up to the car. Its styling is a perfect blend of muscular aggressiveness combined with a compact sedan. The Polestar 2 really is a mean-looking sports sedan.
Technically the Polestar 2 is a liftback, which I (and my dog) do greatly appreciate. But from the outside, it just looks like a sedan.
I also love that it sits just a little higher than a regular sedan. That’s made it slightly easier for people to get in/out of it and it does improve visibility when driving. Having sat in a Tesla Model 3 several times, it always surprises me how low you are in it.
The Thunder color always looks stunning.
Favorite Things
The acceleration and handling are definitely favorites. This car drives like it is on rails and can go from zero to illegal very quickly.
I absolutely love the Harman/Kardon audio system. It has the perfect amount of bass for me, but also sounds crystal-clear. I often sit in the car in the garage to listen to tunes when I need some metal therapy.
The seats are incredibly comfortable. They are nice and firm with great lumbar support.
The headlights do a wonderful job of lighting the road and I appreciate the extra “turn lights” that illuminate when taking corners.
These Things Could Be Better
The efficiency of the Polestar 2, at least my 2021 Launch Edition, is not great. Newer models are more efficient so I can’t complain too much, but the relatively poor efficiency means that its range also suffers. I keep a spreadsheet of a variety of trips and the worst efficiency I’ve seen is 45 kWh/ 100 mi (2.22 mi/kWh) and the best I’ve seen is 25.1 kWh / 100 mi (3.98 mi/kWh).
On this recent 98 mile trip, you can see I got 37.5 kWh/100mi, which is 2.67mi/kWh. The temp was on the cold side, however.
There is too much black plastic on the steering wheel controls. I wrapped the area around the shifter to cover its excessive black plastic.
Front-seat storage is minimal. This mostly works for me as I don’t tend to keep junk in my car, but things can get tight quickly when it’s more than just me in there. I bought some 3D printed cupholders for the door pockets and a small shelf for the center console below the infotainment, which helps somewhat.
I do have to reboot the infotainment system somewhat regularly, although not super-often. I’d guess I reboot it about three or four times a month. I’ve had the audio go out once in the year I’ve had it, which is a complaint I have seen online, but a reboot fixed that.
I really think Polestar should be updating the car’s software more often. My friends with Teslas get monthly updates. My Polestar 2 has only gotten one update in the year I’ve had it, although the v5 update is expected soon-ish. It has been starting to appear in Europe and Australia, but so far not in the U.S.
I’d like more settings for some things. In particular, I’d like to be able to show the currently playing song in the driver console. I’d also like to see efficiency as mi/kWh instead of kWh/100 miles. It would also be great to see more driving stats in the infotainment. Right now I have to export data from the Journey Log app and import it into another tool to get stats.
Battery Degradation
Checking the car’s settings with an OBD-II reader, my Polestar 2 reports its battery state of health (SoH) as 92.46%. Take this with a grain of salt as I don’t know how accurate that value is. I’ve heard that it is best to “calibrate” things to get the most accurate number, but that requires getting the car down to 0% and then charging it up to 100%, which I really don’t want to bother with.
If this number is accurate, I think that is a reasonable amount of degradation. I’ll probably be checking it periodically to make sure it doesn’t start changing drastically.
Issues
A low coolant message appeared shortly after I got the car when taking a corner aggressively. When I checked the coolant level, it was exactly at the minimum level. I bought some coolant and topped it off to be between minimum and maximum and the message has not reappeared.
An SRS (air bag) light turned on in the dash in June. This turned out to had been caused by a connector under the passenger seat that got jiggled loose when my wife stuffed her purse under there. The light has not come on since I fixed it.
I changed the cabin air filter in December. It was filthy. I suspect it was never changed by the dealer I bought it from.
The large key FOBs started behaving unreliably. I replaced the CR2032 batteries in them in early January and have not had a problem since.
I originally had trouble getting the phone app and phone as key (PAK) working. It wasn’t until after the 3.6.4 update in June, when I did another full factory reset of the car that everything started working. I’ve not had any problems with either since then.
At times there is a slight clicking/ticking noise that can be heard from the climate vents in the front dash. This is typically only after first getting in the car when it is starting things up. It’s always done this and I presumed it was just a normal Polestar 2 sound, but I’ve since learned that it is possible it could be an indicator that the internal actuators that control the climate vents could perhaps be starting to fail or that perhaps a gear tooth on an actuator could be broken. This has not been a frequent enough problem to worry about, but fixing it will require a visit to the service center.
My wife has said, while sitting in the back seat, that she has heard some faint clicking when the car is slowing down when I’m using regenerative braking. This is likely the telltale “wheel of fortune” axle clicking that many Polestar 2 owners complain about and that is addressed by replacing the axles. Apparently this is just an annoying sound and not dangerous, so I’m not likely to worry about it. I’ve never heard it myself while driving, even with the windows down.
Concerns
My Polestar 2 is now out of its bumper-to-bumper warranty. The battery warranty remains in effect. Without the B2B warranty, fixing things could quickly get expensive.
The closest and only practical service center I can go to is in Boston, about 100 miles from me. EVs generally don’t need much regular maintenance, but when something goes wrong it is stressful to not have a nearby service center. Polestar really needs to step up their service situation here in the US. I’d love it if Volvo dealers could become Polestar-certified, at least for the Polestar 2 since it shares so many components with the EX40 Recharge.
Summary
Would I buy another Polestar 2? Yes, in a heartbeat! I really hope that Polestar is going to be able to bring the Polestar 2 back to the US market next year with the 2027 update. But if they don’t, I suspect I’ll end up looking for a used 2024 or 2025 model when I decide my time with this Polestar 2 is up.
If you’re looking to get your own Polestar 2, you might find my Used Polestar 2 Buying Guide helpful.