Polestar 4 Review 2024

If you’re looking for a super-stylish electric car, and you fancy something a bit different to the norm, then there’s a heck of a lot to like about the Polestar 4. Its handsomely striking looks are complimented by the Polestar brand’s stylish and unconventional image, and if you don’t get bored with explaining what it is to people all the time, then you’ll most likely find that individuality appealing.

We've only tried the Single Motor version so far, but we reckon this will be plenty fast enough to suit most buyers, and delivers significant advantages in both purchase price and range. Plus, you’re still getting the Polestar 4’s theatrical looks, plush interior and generous equipment. That said, we wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to go the whole hog and go for the super-fast Twin Motor version.

That’s a tremendous question, and the answer will likely depend on whether you agree with Polestar’s assertion that the Polestar 4 is an SUV. If you do, then a Porsche Macan could be seen as a worthy alternative, while if you don’t, then a Taycan might be a more appropriate rival. One thing is for sure: prestige rivals such as Audi, BMW and Mercedes have no shortage of all-electric models on offer, in all sorts of body styles, depending on which way you see it.

It’s not just the minimalist design that makes the Polestar 4’s interior feel stylish and sophisticated: the materials help on that score, too. All the surfaces and textures you feel have a plush finish, and the way everything is assembled feels impressively solid. And that’s despite many of these materials having had a previous life: lots of the plastics, fabrics and carpets used are recycled from a variety of sources, including plastic water bottles and reclaimed fishing nets. Specify the optional Nappa leather pack, and your upholstery is also animal welfare-secured.

Like we said earlier, Polestar’s minimalist interior design has seen the purging of almost all physical switchgear from the cabin, meaning that pretty much all of the car’s functions have to be operated through the large 15.4-inch landscape-orientated infotainment touchscreen. This is mounted on the centre of the dashboard, and has all the regular infotainment functionality you expect, such as Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, Bluetooth, and DAB radio. Wireless phone charging and four USB-C ports (two up front, two in the back) are also provided, along with a 10.2-inch screen behind the steering wheel to serve as your driving instruments, and another touchscreen in the back seats to give those passengers control over media and climate functions.

The operating system that powers the Polestar 4's infotainment has been co-developed with Google, which brings a number of benefits. The navigation is based on Google Maps, you have Google Assistant voice control, and built-in Google Play store means you can download a variety of different apps directly onto the system. There’s also no doubting that the whole thing looks very cool, with stylish and sophisticated graphics, smooth screen transitions and a generally slick feel. And, navigating the complex system is made slightly easier by the fact that you never have to scroll up and down menus, or swipe between them.

That’s not to say it’s easy, though: far from it. There are just so many different menus, widgets and screen layout that you just can’t help but get lost, and on an irritatingly regular basis. Trying to find a minor function is proper needle/haystack territory, and you’ll likely try four or five menus before you eventually find it, all while your attention is being diverted from the road ahead. The screen sensitivity isn’t what it might be, either, so once you finally find the on-screen icon you’re looking for, it might take several jabs of your finger before your input registers.

The Polestar 4 might be smaller than the range-topping 3, but there really isn’t much in it, so this is still a very large car. In terms of dimensions, it’s 4,840mm long, 2,139mm wide (including door mirrors) and 1,534mm tall, while the wheelbase stands at 2,999mm.

Like we said earlier, Polestar’s designers decided to do away with a rear window on the Polestar 4, so that they could achieve the theatrical coupe-like roofline, and maximise rear headroom at the same time. With no glazing to accommodate, they’ve been able to push the structural parts of the rood further back towards the very rear of the car, so that the full-length panoramic glass roof extends over the heads of the rear-seat passengers.

Between the clever design and the enormous proportions of the car, the Polestar 4 feels like a very roomy car. Headroom is generous in any of the five seats, while legroom is absolutely vast all-round, too. The cabin’s impressive width also means that three burly passengers will fit comfortably along the rear bench, helped further by well sculpted seats and a perfectly flat floor in the rear.

The boot is usefully large, too, with 526 litres of space on offer, 31 litres of which comes in the form of an underfloor compartment. This can be used to store your cables, or you could choose to keep those in the 15-litre ‘frunk’ compartment under the bonnet.

Drop the 60/40 split rear seats down, and a total of 1,536 litres of loadspace is freed up. The folded backrests lie flat and sit flush with the boot floor, too, so the load area you get has no steps or slopes, which is handy. There is a small load lip to negotiate at the entrance of the boot, though.

As we’ve said, the Polestar 4 comes in two rather different forms. The Single Motor variant kicks off the range, and as the name suggests, this has a single electric motor on the rear axle putting out 272PS, and this allows the car to power up to 62mph from a standing start in 7.1 seconds.

The Dual Motor variant ups the ante quite considerably in terms of raw power output. This gets a second electric motor to power the front axle, giving you four-wheel drive, and hiking the combined power output up to a truly stonking 544PS. This cuts the 0-62mph sprint time down to just 3.8 seconds. In both cars, power is stored in a huge 100kWh battery (that’s the nominal capacity, while the usable capacity is 94kWh).

As previously mentioned, we’ve only had the opportunity to sample the Single Motor variant so far. It might be the lesser powertrain, but we reckon it’ll still be plenty brisk enough for most. Okay, so it doesn’t give you that explosive off-the-mark acceleration that you get from some electric cars, but it still pulls away very rapidly indeed - it feels more rapid than it’s 0-62mph sprint time suggests, in fact - and it generally feels quick enough so as not to betray the car’s otherwise sporty feel.

Like with many electric cars, the level of acceleration you feel when already on the move wanes the faster you go, but it always feels muscular enough to cope with any given driving situation. And if you do want that stronger on-the-move urge, or that organ-rearranging off-the-mark acceleration, then we’re pretty sure that the Twin Motor version will provide it.

A full charge of the 4’s massive 100kWh battery will take you 385 miles in the Long Range Single Motor car, according to official WLTP combined figures. The Long Range Dual Motor, meanwhile, will take you 367 miles on the same charge, according to the same figures.

As ever, though, don’t rely on getting those precise numbers in the real world. Long motorway journeys will see a drastic drop-off in the range you can achieve, and so will cold weather.

As you’d probably expect from a premium-badged electric car - no matter how performance-focused it is - refinement is a major strong point. The car unfurls its prodigious pace accompanied by an almost non-existent soundtrack, with barely a peep to be heard from the drive motor, while other sources of exterior noise are also very well suppressed at all times. This is a very peaceful and serene way of getting around no matter what your surroundings.

The Polestar 4 hasn’t been tested by Euro NCAP yet, but given that Polestar is so closely related to Volvo, and given how much safety equipment is on board the 4, we expect top-notch scores once it has.

The high-tech ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) setup in the Polestar 4 has a total of 12 cameras, one radar and 12 ultrasonic sensors, and the car uses all these to build up a detailed digital picture of the driving scenario around you, so it can react accordingly with semi-autonomous inputs. 

We won’t bother listing out all of the numerous individual functions that all this facilitates, because we’d be here all day. Just trust us that virtually no stone has been left unturned. We say virtually, because there is one thing missing on the driver assistance front: interestingly, the 4 isn’t offered with the optional LiDAR system you’ll soon be able to specify on the bigger Polestar 3, which adds even more sensors and will allow for fully autonomous driving once it becomes legal.

If all those driving aids aren’t enough to keep you out of trouble, seven airbags are provided as standard to help keep you from harm. A further two can be specified as an option.

The Polestar 4 is still very new, so there hasn't yet been time for it to feature in the latest HonestJohn.co.uk Satisfaction Index, our go-to source of reliability data. In fact, the Polestar brand itself hasn't featured yet, as it’s a relatively new brand that sells relatively few cars. That means we can’t even give you an idea of the company’s performance in general when it comes to reliability.

We can try and get some idea by looking at the performance of Volvo, because the two brands share platforms, parts and technology. Volvo placed 14th out of 29 carmakers in the latest study, which is about as average as it’s possible to get. However, that result won’t have been based on the all-electric Volvo models with which Polestars share their bits and bobs, so don’t read too much into that result.

Talking of ‘average’, that’s a word that can be applied to the firm’s warranty arrangement. You get three-year, 60,000-mile cover on most of the car, while the battery is covered for eight years or 100,000 miles. However, it is a nice little perk that you get free scheduled maintenance for the first three years or 31,250 miles of ownership.

All cars are classified in an insurance group between 1 and 50, with group 1 cars being the cheapest to insure, and group 50 cars being the most expensive on premiums. Go for the Single Motor Polestar 4, and your car sits in group 45. Go for the Twin Motor, and it’ll be in group 48. Neither will be cheap to insure, then, but this is a car that’s both expensive and powerful, so you wouldn’t expect it to be.

Because the Polestar 4 is an electric car, you pay no VED road tax on it at the moment. However, the tax laws are due to change as of April 2025, when you’ll very likely be lumbered with the same - or similar - tax liability as owners of petrol and diesel cars.

We’re already talked about the safety kit and the infotainment kit you get with the Polestar 4 in other sections, so we won’t go over all that again here. On top of all that, the standard equipment list includes LED exterior lighting with automatic high beam headlights, the panoramic glass roof, 360-degree parking cameras and sensors, dual-zone climate control, heated front seats, and a heat pump for making the most of the car’s range in cold weather.

Various option packs are available, and these bundle up desirable extras for a (not inconsiderable) one-off fee. The Plus Pack, for instance, adds flashier interior trim, three-zone climate control, a head-up display, a powered tailgate with kick sensor, and an upgraded Harman Kardon sound system.