Polestar 2 review - Interior, design and technology
Polestar has engineered plenty of quality, style and great tech into the 2.
The Polestar 2 is a fastback-styled family car with stacks of Swedish cool. It has a classy, Volvo-like feel to the interior, while the frameless door mirrors and glass roof panel just add to the stylish look.
Leather upholstery isn’t offered as standard with the 2, instead Polestar offers a ‘vegan interior’ with no animal products used in the cabin. However, if you really want to specify leather trim, then you can tick the options list - adding an extra £4,000 to the list price.
Polestar doesn’t feature typical trim levels, and previously included specific ‘themes’ inspired by different cities, including Shanghai, London and Berlin. Each theme brought together different colour and trim combinations for the cabin and exterior bodywork.
The manufacturer no longer offers these themes, instead buyers can select from five upholstery/interior trim combinations and add either the Pilot, Plus or Performance packs at extra cost. Each pack brings lots of extra kit, relating to safety, additional luxury items or equipment designed to improve the driving experience. However, one downside to this method is that you won't be able to personalise your car by selecting individual options.
Sat-nav, stereo and infotainment
With such rapid progress in touchscreen tech, Polestar has taken the wise move to let Google handle the operating system of the Polestar 2’s cabin. As a result, the system loads quickly, brings up postcode searches or other specific points of interest with ease, and can adapt a chosen route to real-time traffic changes.
The home screen is split into four quarters, showing Google Maps, Google Search, phone and media controls. Access to functions such as drive settings and external cameras can be accessed through shortcuts at the top, while climate controls can be adjusted at the bottom.
Overall, most things work smoothly and easily, but compared to some rivals such as Tesla, an 11.2-inch display is quite small. It’s all relative, though; compared with many other cars on the market it’s a decent size, but it means some keys are smaller than they would be on the larger displays seen in the BMW i4 and Model 3, which makes the Polestar a little fiddlier to use.
