It has done so quietly and without melodrama, but with so many manufacturers dialing back on their commitment to all-electric power, arguably Polestar has been the company to stay on message the best.
Polestar, the car manufacturer based in Sweden and owned by Volvo and a holding company controlled by Geely, the Chinese automaker, has been around since 2009, originally as a tuning company for Volvos. In 2015, Volvo bought Polestar, and two years later, Volvo and Geely announced that Polestar was pivoting to an all-electric company.
Polestar merged with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) and went public in June of 2022 on NASDAQ, starting out with shares going for $12.98. This past week, the price has been about $1.08. Like so many other manufacturers, Polestar was hit with the one-two punch of supply chain issues, then weakening consumer interest in electric cars.
Still, many analysts remain mildly optimistic. Three months ago, The Motley Fool website suggested that while “Polestar isn’t profitable yet, it still had $501 million in cash with an $800 million credit facility at the end of its latest quarter. Analysts expect its revenue to more than double in 2025 and rise 55 percent in 2026.”
Meanwhile, Polestar continues to persevere, still quietly, still without melodrama.
Recently, we previewed the new Polestar 4, which the company describes as an “SUV coupe,” with a day-long drive, but since it won’t be introduced in the U.S. until this fall, we agreed to an embargo on writing about the car, but only on driving impressions. But there’s an ample amount to write about now, much of it good, some of it pretty subjective.
One of those subjective topics: The fact that the Polestar 4 has no rear window. There doesn’t seem to be a particularly performance-driven reason for that, nor does it appear to make much of a difference in aesthetics. Perhaps it’s more like Polestar needing some innovations that set it apart from competitors, and for better or worse, this is one of them.
I really didn’t mind the absence of rear glass—the car looks fine without it, and even in the rather roomy rear seat, there’s plenty of light allowed in by the glass roof. But it does mean that your center-mounted rear-view mirror isn’t a mirror, but displays a rear-facing camera image.
This in itself isn’t new; the Cadillac Escalade I drove to the airport to fly to the Polestar 4 program had a rear-view camera. It might be too close to providing a too-early driving impression of the Polestar 4 to say whether I liked the rear-view camera, but I can say I wasn’t fond of it in the Escalade, or in most of the other vehicles I’ve driven that provide a rear-view image, instead of a reflection.
Polestar executives did admit that rear-view camera images may be a bit less loved by older drivers with vision challenges, which I don’t have: I’m just not crazy about them, especially when reversing. “It might take a couple of days to get used to it,” one Polestar exec suggested. Perhaps. But telling a prospective customer on a Polsestar 4 test drive that they’d get used to a problem they have with the car in “a couple of days” is not regarded as a prime selling tool. Certainly, it isn’t as far-fetched as “You’ll get used to that vibration in a couple of days,” but it isn’t optimum.
That said, the Polestar 4, which is built in South Korea, doesn’t give you a lot to complain about. It’s certainly a handsome vehicle, inside and out. Offered in rear- and all-wheel-drive, expected range is good, but not great: Around 300 miles for the single-motor, rear-drive model, and 270 for the dual-motor, all-wheel-drive version. With DC fast charging, Hyundai says to expect a 30-minute time from 10 percent to 80 percent for either model.
The single-motor car has 272 horsepower, while the AWD model has 544. Polestar claims the 0-to-60 mph time is the base car is a mediocre 6.9 seconds, but with dual motors, it’s a quick 3.7 seconds.
Polestar 4 pricing is roughly in line with the competition, such as the upcoming Georgia-built Hyundai Ioniq 9 and the Kia EV9 SUVs. The Polestar 4 starts at $57,800, including shipping, or $64,300 for dual motors. Check every option box, and you’re still under $75,000. The bigger, less powerful (215 hp) Ionic 9 starts at $60,555, with shipping. The Kia EV9, also 215 hp, starts at $56,395, with shipping.
We’ll be able to tell you more about the Polestar 4 in October, but you can order one now at Polestar.com.
Big mistake.
That rear window even if you just need to valance back is needed.
I have a Rear View camera mirror in my car but takes some getting used to it. You need to focus on the mirror not the distant object.
Got one at a rent-a-car place at Sky Harbor in Phoenix earlier this year. Although not all of the “how do you do x-y-z?” were very intuitive, I did enjoy driving it. It was peppy and really a decent looker. If I were thinking of buying an about-town-grocery-getter-EV, I would at least give the Polestar a close look.