Three Months with a Polestar 4

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Polestar 4 owner Phil Gee Kee came to our Coffee, Cake, and EVs morning at the Bracken Ridge Tavern recently, and showed us all his pride and joy. Majella and I had only had a short time to look at one, and, unfortunately, were unable to take it for a test drive. So we were keen to learn more about the car from someone with first-hand knowledge. Phil generously shared his experience. Here it is in his own words.

“For as long as I can remember I have been a ‘car guy.’ I love the sound of the V8 muscle cars. I owned several Holden V8s in my youth, but in more recent times I have been a fan of fast touring estate wagons, having also previously owned a Peugeot 508 GT Touring and a Golf R Wolfsburg Estate.

“The decision to maybe switch to an EV was one that took a lot of deliberation and research, and as my wife often says, ‘I hate it when you decide to change your cars because the research starts a year out and that’s all I hear about until you decide.’

“For a ‘petrolhead’ like myself, the decision came with questions and uncertainty, new technology, range anxiety, lack of charging infrastructure, thermal runaway, support network, etc. Do I buy an EV or just go halfway and get a PHEV? We also enjoy a good road trip, and so how will that work?

“I had a lot of other requirements. I live on a large block and often need to tow a trailer for mulching and garden work; I play a lot of golf and often travel away with my mates with a lot of golf gear. So, it needs to be AWD (for towing) and it needs a decent boot and good access. It needed to have good range, so my focus was on vehicles with big batteries (100kWh). Originally, I thought I would wait for the solid state technology, but, for how long.

“We knew people who had bought EVs and hybrids, and they seemed happy with their decisions, so do we ease into it with a hybrid until the tech matures or just rip the band-aid off as they say.

“As a bit of a trial, we rented a BYD Atto 3 for 2 weeks whilst on holidays in South Australia and drove it all through the Adelaide Hills, McLaren Vale, and the Barossa and found it great, charged at the AirBNBs at night and just once at a Chargefox station in Tanunda at a cost of $14.00. So that was definitely food for thought.

“My wife calls me a car nerd, and to be fair, I did quite a bit of research on all the mid-size EVs and upwards. There are not too many YouTube reviews I haven’t seen. I had shortlisted down to Tesla Model Y, Zeekr, Polestar, BYD, and Toyota (for the new RAV4 GR Sport).

“We test drove a Polestar 2 and thought it was pretty good but found the back seats okay but a bit compact, but the killer for me was the odd centre console design.

“My mate had an early Model Y Tesla and spent many hours at golf talking about how much he loved to drive it, how great the software was, how little it cost to run, and after I test drove his car I was inclined to agree. We decided to test drive a new Model Y DM and we both found it quite nice, software amazing, great performance, and loads of room for golf clubs. The Model Y Performance tweaked my interest, but my wife put an end to that conversation when I mistakenly told her the price and the cost to replace the 275 R21 rear tyres. The Model Y DM was the right size and the right price, but it is the sort of car you either love or hate the look of it. And then there’s Elon. I had seen articles online about FSD and other future updates and how he might impose subscription services and this made me re-evaluate my thought process, rightly or wrongly. I’d also seen a lot of online comments in forums about issues with the front suspension arms.

“We looked at a Zeekr 7X and generally liked it, though my wife was not keen on the automatic doors and that would prove to be a major hurdle. A friend of mine in Newcastle had recently bought a 7X Performance and loved it except for the time it locked him out of the car on his driveway, and he discovered how little technical support Zeekr had. He eventually figured it out himself after 24 hours.

“I was very attracted to the look of the Polestar 4. I had always loved the look of the car. Buying cars is such an emotional experience I find, and the Polestar 4 genuinely evoked that kind of emotion in me, in the same way that I also felt about the Zeekr 7GT. But there were several reasons not to consider it. Too expensive, a seemingly long list of online complaints about buggy unpredictable software, no rear window, the width of the vehicle, and the fact that Polestar was in significant financial difficulty. I had convinced myself that I would just wait for the 7GT.

“We were in Volvo Brisbane test driving the Volvo EX30 for my wife and whilst we were there, we had a look at the PS4, and the sale guy suggested we might as well drive it while we were there. He gave us a new PS4 Performance to test drive for 2 hours. The car itself was great to drive and even more surprisingly my wife loved it. We drove it home and put it in the garage, as I had reservations about whether it would fit. Ours is a standard 5.8 x 5.9m garage with a fridge and shelves, etc., it was snug but no issues. It was a different level of fit and finish to the Model Y.

“A month later Trump started a war with Iran and petrol skyrocketed. History tells you that this will go on for some time, so I guess we just decided ‘let’s rip the band-aid off’. We went back into Volvo to buy the EX30 for my wife and they had a pre-owned near new PS4 on the floor with most of the options, so we did a deal and all thoughts of the 7GT went out the window. It was months away anyway.

“Three months on how do I feel? I’ve done around 4000 km in the car and that includes a mix of city driving, trips to Noosa, Montville and multiple trips to Woodford and Bribie Island. We love driving the car, it’s very comfortable as a grand tourer. It’s the right size for us. The width is a bit challenging in car parks, but you get used to it, as you do with the rear-view mirror.

“The car seems to have reasonable range. Previously I was on V4.2.8 and at 90% charge the car reported 505 km of range. Since upgrading to V4.2.11, the car now only reports around 450 km range at 90%. I did see an article that indicated that V4.2.8 was optimistically inflating expected range and V4.2.11 had corrected that to now more accurately indicate true expected range. We have recently done a short road trip down to Ballina. Left home with 94% charge and arrived in Ballina with 56%. We charged at the Chargefox station at Ballina Fair to 89% and arrived back in Brisbane with 52% and averaged 17.9kWh/100km. The software is definitely ‘interesting’ and nowhere near as mature and refined as the Tesla. Yes, there are certainly random software glitches, memory related I’d say, but these occur only about 10% of the time. The remaining 90% of the time the car behaves as expected. I feel the car has been more reliable since upgrading to V4.2.11.

“Warranty issues to date:

• The external boot release stopped working 4 weeks ago. Thankfully the foot swipe and the release button on the internal screen always works. (Warranty – waiting on parts from Sweden)
• There is a creak in the steering which needs lubricating. (Volvo resolved)
• The left wiper arm returns short every 4th sweep and makes an audible clicking noise when it does (Volvo unable to resolve)
  Observations (Suggested improvements)
• Apple CarPlay doesn’t always automatically connect, though I have found a way to engage it manually if I need to. I find CarPlay is a better interface to make phone calls and read/replay SMS messages than the onboard system. I do prefer the inbuilt Google Maps software in the car as it does give me the battery usage percentages and predictions which CarPlay does not. The battery usage predictions are spot on BTW.
• Quite often the car defaults to the Guest profile rather than to my own specific profile, its annoying but easily reverted.
• The wireless phone charger needs a vent.
• The LCD panel would work better if it was portrait. It’s just too wide in landscape and too distracting to reach to the far side whilst driving.
• I’d like to set all my drive settings once and not have to reset the lane guidance and the tired warning every time I get in the car. I suspect this happens in a lot of EVs and not just the Polestar.
• The screen is not always immediately responsive. Every now and then it takes a few taps to do something.
• The rear facing camera in the bumper is very sensitive and reversing out my driveway which is a little steep at the road end can cause the brakes to suddenly apply. I don’t reverse out anymore.
• Intermittent software issues with the main LCD relating to the HUD and the cameras.

“I had an EVNEX Core charger installed by Brisbane EV Chargers (recommend) and we switched to the AGL Night Saver plan, and we get around 30% charge within the 12-6am window. To date we have only used this for both vehicles and it costs us collectively around $45-48.00/month in charge costs, as opposed to around $480.00/month for fuel for both cars.

“I have to say that since we have had both cars now for 3 months, all of those earlier anxieties have passed and we are more than comfortable with the technology. Yes, in the case of Polestar the software needs work, many would say for the price you pay, it should be better and there is an element of truth in that, but I can live with its quirky bits, all cars have them.

“Ironically, I paid more for the Polestar 4 than I would have for the Tesla Model Y Performance.”