GOOD Genuinely good fun to drive if you have the space Very roomy and nicely finished interior Slightly less expensive than rivals from BMW and Mercedes
BAD Not quite as cosseting as rivals Interior shares a lot of parts and design features with its Volvo EX90 sibling We’ve yet to try a finished version of the multimedia and driver assistance features
The biggest challenge is that they have built their customer base on a lower-market car than their public-facing intentions suggest.
The Polestar 3 is positioned just fine, they want to be like Porsche and it’s right in line in terms of size, dynamics, and positioning as a lower-spec Cayenne compared to the Volvo EX90’s more stoic “Audi Q7 feel”. But when your primary seller, the Polestar 2, is positioned to compete with lower-market cars like the Tesla Model 3, it dilutes that brand you desperately want to move upmarket.
Volvo handing off their S40 design to Polestar to use for the 2 was both a blessing and a curse for them.
I suspect Geely is okay with Volvo and Polestar’s Audi > Porsche type relationship because they know that, some day, they’ll be able to get the Geely brand or Zeekr into the North American market to capture that lower-market segment.
Personally, I think that Volvo should have tried to be Porsche; the ones I see most around here at the XC60s and 90s, which seem more naturally higher market than creating a completely new brand
Let Polestar be a BMW fighter and let Volvo move upmarket. Makes more sense than creating a brand new one
idk