2025 Polestar 3 Sheds 1 Motor, Gains Range—but It's Still Expensive

Yahoo

31-03-2025

2025 Polestar 3 is now available as a 'Long Range Single Motor' variant that lops off the front motor, reducing output and weight and cutting the sticker price while extending range to an EPA-estimated 350 miles.
Our well-equipped single-motor test vehicle carried a $76,700 sticker price with 21-inch Plus five-spoke rims ($1,200) and repurposed aluminum inside.
There are generous incentives on a 27-month lease for a Polestar 3: Save up to $20,000, including $5,000 as a conquest bonus for Tesla owners.
What's the appropriate threshold that needs crossing before an automaker can claim 'long range' for its battery-electric vehicle?
These days, it seems to be about 300 miles, although shoppers—especially those on the fence about EVs—will appreciate the day that target exceeds 450 miles, if possible, without a punishing step up in price.
I just drove a 2025 Chevy Silverado EV work truck rated at 492 miles, and in a week I couldn't get close to draining the battery, even while towing a 20-foot camper for a morning. The Lucid Air Grand Touring offers an eye-opening 512 miles of range.
But a Grand Touring is a six-figure investment, and that Silverado stickered for over $80k. The challenge for every EV maker is to hit that 300-mile target while pricing close to the $48,000 average price for a new car in America.
Polestar has surpassed the range target with its Polestar 3, although its price continues to reflect an upstart Swedish brand (Chinese owned) that wants a seat at the performance luxury table, even while entrenched German brands with long-established luxury roots struggle to sell the EVs they already have in market.
The two-row Polestar 3 midsize crossover achieved 315 miles of range when it launched in the US last fall with two motors—one in front, one in back—and a stout 489 hp and 620 lb-ft of torque. But it also carried a base price of $74,800 with destination, and our model as tested last September was a hard-to-swallow $93,100.
The 2025 Polestar 3 is now available as a 'Long Range Single Motor' variant that lops off the front motor, reducing output and weight and—most importantly—cutting the sticker price while extending range to an EPA-estimated 350 miles.
The base price cut to $68,900 with destination certainly helps, but is it enough when rivals such as the Acura ZDX, Audi Q6 e-tron, Cadillac Lyriq, Genesis GV60, Lexus RZ, and Mercedes-Benz EQB all sell for less? Heck, the RZ can be had for under $45,000.
This quandary perhaps explains the generous incentives currently on a 27-month lease for a Polestar 3: Save up to $20,000, including Polestar's $15,000 Clean Vehicle Incentive plus $5,000 as a Conquest Bonus for Tesla owners.
The Polestar 3 build configurator says the $5,000 Tesla offer expires today, March 31, so act fast. The Polestar 3 is built in South Carolina (for export as well), so it's eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit—as long as that lasts—and potentially avoids a tariff hit.
But take a closer look at the build sheet for this new long-range Polestar 3, and you see that 45% of the content comes from China, 25% from Mexico, and powertrain/transmission parts come from Sweden. Tariffs are bound to cost you something, but we don't yet know how much.
That build sheet also reveals a $76,700 sticker price for this well-equipped single-motor test vehicle with 21-inch Plus five-spoke rims ($1,200) and repurposed aluminum inside, along with charcoal 'Animal Welfare Wool' upholstery.
On road, this new long-range Polestar 3 is more than competent, agile, and powerful, with one motor sending 295 hp and 361 lb-ft of torque to the rear wheels. The front end is lighter, which makes for spirited driving on the weaving roads of Agoura Hills west of Los Angeles and then south to Malibu.
These roads were a lot more entertaining than the congested two-lanes around Jackson, Wyoming, for last September's drive of the 510-hp AWD dual-motor Polestar 3, so it's hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison.
But at no point did I find the new single-motor variant to be lacking in performance or straining to propel its curb weight of up to 5,445 pounds uphill. That's 338 pounds lighter than the heaviest dual-motor Polestar 3.
On paper, the compromise is clear: 0 to 60 mph in 4.8 seconds with the dual-motor, but 7.5 seconds with one motor. Both versions get the same 400-volt lithium-ion battery with 111 kWh of capacity.
Another difference between the two—and an opportunity to take out more cost—is the passive dampers with coil springs in place of the adjustable active air suspension employed in the dual-motor Polestar 3.
Again, in Wyoming, the air suspension didn't get much of a workout in our dual-motor test drive, but the less sophisticated passive setup in the single-motor Polestar 3 mitigated body lean and kept it well planted on some fantastic roads last week. Torque vectoring is only available with AWD, but the single-motor model did just fine without it.
Inside, the look, feel and Scandinavian design ethic of the dual-motor version carry over to the single-motor, and the Google-based infotainment platform running a massive 14.5-inch floating center screen will be user-friendly enough to certain shoppers.
But if you crave simple controls and despise drilling into menus to reposition your mirrors, change a radio station, adjust one-pedal driving, tweak your driver-assistance settings, or open the glovebox, then bring your patience when you come for the test drive.
When navigating the touchscreen, be deliberate with an accusatory finger when jabbing it to make your selection, lest the frustration take hold. There might be a setting to change that, and perhaps we needed to drill deeper.
Also, the same complaint stands from last September about the steering wheel controls that are unlabeled.
The left side is for Pilot Assist ADAS settings (which didn't work for me), while the right side is for voice activation, adjusting mirrors and the steering wheel angle, and switching the information displayed in the nine-inch digital cluster in front of the driver.
Apparently Scandinavian minimalism can indeed go too far.
Polestar has a three-car all-electric lineup that will gain a fourth model (Polestar 5 grand tourer) before year's end and then the Polestar 7 crossover after that.
But based on the brand selling fewer than 100 Polestar 3s (with one or two motors) in the first two months of 2025 in the US, moving the metal is the number one priority.
Does a lower price and longer range for the Polestar 3 make it more attractive to you as an upscale electric crossover? Please comment below.