Long-term report: Range is the name of the game with the Polestar 2

It’s funny what a little extra range will do for the electric car experience, isn’t it? In the case of the Polestar 2 – which I’m lucky enough to be looking after for the next few months – more range is coming thick and fast.

Back in 2023, Polestar announced that it would be refining its 2 fastback. New electric motors were introduced and the 2 switched to rear-wheel-drive for the first time, having been front-wheel-drive since its introduction. Throw in some tweaks to the batteries and the 2 became an even longer-range EV, having been pretty good in this department already.

In fact, the changes added an additional 52 miles of plug-power to the 2 in single motor, long-range specification – like the one I’m looking at here – bringing a range of between 372 and 408 miles. It’s an impressive amount of range, in fact, and makes the 2 one of the best cars for long-distance trips in the entire EV segment.

You might remember that I previously looked after a BMW iX2, a car which I really enjoyed. It would manage around 270 miles of range in the summertime, dropping closer to around 220 miles when things got colder. But it must be the Scandinavian influence helping the 2’s efficiency as, during the recent cold snap, it has still been showing well over 300 miles of range on a single charge. In fact, at present, the 2 is returning up to 330 miles on a full charge which though some way off claimed, isn’t bad for the depths of winter.

It’s remarkable how having well over 300 miles of range changes the whole EV experience. I’m lucky enough to have a home charger so I know that I can always set off with a full ‘tank’ and I’ve yet to come close to scratching close to the Polestar’s charging limits. A few work-related events saw me driving to Gatwick from my home near Portsmouth, and then onwards to Maidenhead, before driving around there for a decent amount of time and returning back again. I didn’t even have to think about charging; the 2 never came close to running out of juice.

Fortunately, all of this time spent behind the wheel has given me a good opportunity to find out more about the 2. It was the car which properly launched Polestar in the UK and, though the brand has since introduced a number of other models, the 2 is the one that you see most of all on our roads.

The driving experience is good. The 2 is quiet, refined and reasonably comfortable – though its low-speed ride is simply too firm for me. That said, the control weights are good and you can toggle through the level of brake regeneration you’d like via the main screen, though I’d rather have paddles to do this on the fly. A 0-60mph time of 5.7 seconds is more than sprightly enough for a car of this type, too, and I’ve very rarely felt like it needed more power.

There have been a few foibles so far. The speed limit warning system is a bit too sensitive and often gets confused by other roadside markers; quite often I’ll be travelling on a national speed limit road and the car will ‘pick up’ a 30mph sign on a slipway, leaving it to bong annoyingly. Thankfully, it quietens down after a few alerts.

The other issue might be a case of ‘first world problems’, but I think a car costing over £48,000 should have wireless Apple CarPlay. You can connect using a cable, of course, but given that the new Dacia Spring – which costs under £20,000 – offers this function, I think it should be included on the 2. Surely it could be fixed via an over-the-air update, too?

I also think that Polestar could liven up the colour options on the 2. It’s very Tesla-esque to offer a limited number of subdued colours, but I think that the 2’s blocky dimensions could pull off some brighter shades. The jazziest is currently the rose gold-esque ‘Jupiter’, but aside from this, it’s largely greys, blacks and a single navy colour. Consider too that you can only get black or grey interior colours and it’s all left feeling a little sad.