Pros: masses of performance, high-quality interior, slinky styling, lovely ride and refinement
Cons: expensive, too much reliance on the touchscreen
Polestar 3 Design
A raft of technical changes has been brought in for the Polestar 3 model line for 2027, but while the bits you can’t see have been thoroughly revised, the bits you can have been left well alone. Polestar reasoned that the handsome 3 SUV, only launched in 2024, wasn’t broke in terms of aesthetic design and so it hasn’t attempted to fix its looks. This is good news, because – as SUVs go – the Polestar 3 is quite low of roof and so has a sporty demeanour. It’s a long car, nearly five metres from tip to tail, so there’s plenty of presence to the P3 as you walk up to it.
Polestar 3 Interior
High-quality fixtures and fittings, plus that magical interior design that only the Swedes seem capable of, which centres on a reductive, minimalist look without coming across as stark and boring in the process, all serve to ensure that the Polestar 3’s passenger compartment is a big hit. We mentioned the car is long on the outside and as three metres of that space sits between the wheels, there’s masses of room in both rows of seating for adults to get comfortable.
Tech is impressive too, with the updated cars getting an onboard processor that’s eight times faster than its immediate predecessor, so that the Google-enabled infotainment presented on the crisp and attractive 14.5-inch central touchscreen is much quicker to respond to taps and inputs than previously. There’s also a slick nine-inch driver’s instrument cluster and a big, sharp head-up display, but the sheer lack of buttons inside the Polestar 3’s cabin means you’re running a few too many ancillaries through the touchscreen, rather than physical controls. That means some features on the car aren’t that easy to adjust or tweak while you’re on the move unless you’ve got a passenger in the front seat to help out.
Polestar 3 Performance & Drive
Three variants of the updated Polestar 3 are available, beginning with a single-motor, rear-wheel-drive model with standard suspension and a 333hp power output, good enough for a 6.5-second 0-100km/h time. Called the Rear Motor, it is fitted with a 92kWh battery and goes 602km to a charge on the WLTP cycle.
Above that car sit two dual-motor, all-wheel-drive Polestar 3s. The first is simply called the Dual Motor, packing 544hp and more advanced air suspension with adaptive dampers, as well as a larger 106kWh battery pack for the longest range of any version of the SUV – it’s said to be able to do up to 647km between charging cycles.
The iteration we’re focusing on here, though, is the range-topping Polestar 3 Dual Motor Performance. That last epithet means it has a colossal 680hp to play with, so the 0-100km/h time is cut from the Dual Motor’s 4.7-second run to a searing 3.9-second sprint here. It also has its own ‘Polestar Engineered’ tune of the air suspension set-up, which makes it more fun to drive.
And, while this Performance version is expensive, it represents the Polestar 3 at its absolute finest. Positive steering and impressive body control mean it’s surprisingly good fun in the corners for something so physically big and weighing in at more than 2.6 tonnes, while the ride comfort is impeccable and the suppression of exterior noise contributors is near-absolute – making the Polestar 3 feel thoroughly sophisticated and beautifully subdued when it is just cruising along.
Like the Dual Motor, the Performance has a 106kWh battery pack, but its range dips to just below that of the Rear Motor. Still, 601km of capability is not to be sniffed at for an EV like this, while the big news for all 2027 Polestar 3s is that they’re now sitting on more advanced 800-volt electrical architecture (previously 400V), which means they can charge faster. At the 350kW maximum DC rate, it’ll take just 22 minutes to get any battery pack in the range from 10-80 per cent of charge.
Polestar 3 Pricing
Polestar Ireland has confirmed that the revised 3 will be hitting our showrooms in the third quarter of 2026, and while we don’t have pricing for the new car available to us as yet, we do know the current models are on sale in a bracket from around €72,000-€97,000; we’d expect the revised examples to be set at a similar level. That makes the Swedish SUV competitive against Germanic rivals, such as the Porsche Macan Electric and the all-new BMW iX3.
Carzone Verdict
While it might look like nothing has changed on the outside with the updated Polestar 3, what the company has enacted here is a most worthwhile set of upgrades – none more so than switching its electrical architecture to a much more powerful 800-volt platform. This not only speeds up the SUV’s charging times, but it also allows for the added potency from the motors which gives the whole Polestar 3 family a most welcome shot in the arm. While the Polestar 3 certainly won’t be cheap when specified as the Performance model, there’s no doubting it’s a truly brilliant, rewarding and classy choice of electric SUV, regardless of the cost.