Polestar 4 review: The futuristic all-electric SUV puts Tesla on notice

Polestar hopes that one day, when you mention electric cars, you’ll talk about Polestar rather than Tesla. The Polestar 4 is a step in the right direction – there’s a lot it does a whole lot better than the American brand.

Let’s start with style, a key brand pillar for Polestar. The 4 is described as a coupé SUV, but rather than just putting a sloping roof on a big, boxy 4x4 this feels more like a slightly raised, sleek four-door saloon – it’s a good-looking car.

The same can be said inside, where there’s a healthy dollop of Scandi cool mixed in with plenty of advanced tech.

It’s how the Polestar 4 drives that impressed us most, though. Gone is the lumpy ride of the Polestar 2, replaced with something far more sophisticated. It feels sporty in a communicative but not uncomfortable way, with enough compliance to be restful at times too. It’s no surprise that it works well on UK roads – some of the development work was done here.

The big 100kWh battery means a decent 385 claimed maximum range, too, while fast charging at up to 200kW won’t have you stopped to recharge for long.

Polestar launched the 3 and 4 models together in the Cotswolds, so I drove the 4 on a mixture of rural country lanes, motorways and around some pretty Cotswold towns. I insisted on having a ride in the back to see what it’s like with no rear window, too.

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Independent rating: 8/10

Polestar says the 4 is its fastest car yet, with the 0-60mph sprint covered in just 3.7 seconds. That turn of speed is matched with some tidy handling too: the steering is quick to respond, grip levels on our long-range dual-motor (one on each axle for four-wheel drive) car were good and the car resolutely won’t lean through corners. The Polestar team have done a good job of giving a platform that’s also used elsewhere in parent company Geely’s family a bespoke Polestar feel, which blends that fine handling with a decent ride too.

There’s only the one battery available currently and it’s a big 100kWh one, giving the Polestar 4 an excellent claimed maximum range of 385 miles for the two-wheel drive single-motor version. Our four-wheel-drive car with twin motors cuts that to a still-reasonable 367 miles.

Fast charging at an appropriate high-speed DC public charger is at up to 200kW, giving you a 30-minute charge time to get from 10 per cent to 80 per cent.

While the Polestar 4’s interior is a beautifully designed thing – dominated, as usual, by a 15.4-inch touchscreen – there’s one unique feature that may be enough to put some people off: there’s no rear window.

Polestar thinks it’s the future, enabling designers to push the roof further back to give you more headroom in the rear seats. A rear-view screen fed by a camera does the job of a mirror and additional cameras feeding the big touchscreen will help when reversing. Some will love the idea, but we suspect others might find it a bit too odd – especially if they’re long-sighted and need glasses to see screens, but not for driving. If that’s the case, you might not get on without a traditional rear-view mirror. The side mirrors, when clean, do a good job of making the rear-view screen’s display look a bit murky.

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Polestar’s claims of excellent rear headroom stand up, though – and it’s the same for kneeroom in the back. If you’re sat on the rear seat, unless you try to glance behind you, you’ll enjoy the view forwards and especially upwards through the wonderful full-length panoramic roof.

Polestar’s excellent sustainability credentials are to the fore inside, with plenty of recycled materials used around the cabin, while our car’s super-supportive front seats were clad in a tailored knit upholstery made from 100 per cent recycled polyester.

The disguised rear hatch – the 4 looks more like a saloon – seems a little odd without glass in it, but it opens to reveal a handy 526-litre boot with an extra 31-litre space under the boot floor. There’s also a small frunk under the bonnet with an extra 15 litres of space.

Polestar is playing the premium game with expensive option packs to get kit like upgraded audio systems, and there are two Harman Kardon set-ups on offer. Our car had a 12-speaker system. It sounds good enough, but don’t try the Bowers & Wilkins system in the Polestar 3 or you’ll know what you’re missing. That system’s not available on the 4 as it uses different platform tech to the 3.

The 15.4-inch touchscreen sits in a landscape arrangement – another legacy of being on a different platform to the portrait-screen-clad Polestar 3 – but Polestar has given the screen its own treatment with a selection of fast ‘buttons’ on the display to take you to the more frequently used controls. It’s a responsive and bright screen, with Google built-in, so there’s excellent voice control too. Don’t worry if you’re an Apple user – wireless CarPlay is also built in.

There’s the expected plethora of advanced driver assistance features, although the most advanced (and useful) adaptive cruise features are exclusive to the £1,300 Pilot Pack upgrade.

Polestar model numbers relate to launch dates, so in terms of price the Polestar 4 sits between the 2 and 3. Our dual-motor long-range model costs £66,990 (or £75,040 with all the options) while the single motor version will set you back £59,990. Given that Polestar is badging these cars as long-range models, it’s fair to assume that there may well be cheaper, less long-range models in the pipeline.

In the meantime, Polestar is so keen to tempt you it’s offering zero per cent interest on finance deals and will even throw in a free home charger for you if you don’t have one already. Polestar has ‘spaces’ rather than traditional dealers, although they do actually sell these days, rather than just passing your details on to Polestar. They’re lovely places to find out more about the cars and just as stylish as the cars themselves.

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The Polestar 4 has fast charging at speeds up to 200kW, giving you a 10 per cent to 80 per cent charge in just 30 minutes.

The Polestar 4 prices currently start at £59,990, although we’d expect cheaper models to turn up eventually with slightly smaller batteries. It’s an expensive car, especially when you plunder the options list.

Polestar says: “Any faults in battery performance or defects in material and workmanship will be resolved free of charge. The battery warranty covers the first eight years of ownership or 100,000 mi, whichever comes first. If the battery’s state of health (SoH) drops below 70 per cent of its original capacity within the first eight years of ownership, the battery will be replaced at no cost.”

Polestar is a brand I really like, putting Scandinavian style and sustainability to the fore in cars that are probably the closest rivals to Tesla’s range. I really enjoyed driving the 4 – its chassis has been honed in the UK and it shows.