MotorTrend

The Polestar 3 Is a Software Patch and a Few New Buttons Away From Greatness

There’s a fundamentally good car here, hiding beneath digital problems and inane controls.
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Pros

  • Handles like a Porsche
  • Looks sharp
  • Excellent packaging

Cons

  • Exterior door handles don’t work
  • Key card doesn’t work
  • Inane controls

We’ve long since entered the era when computers and software define how we interact with our vehicles. There is precious little innovation you can do with a modern car that is purely mechanical. This presents enormous possibilities for new features but also leaves automakers vulnerable to infuriating software bugs. Like the mythical Icarus, the 2025 Polestar 3 flew too close to the software sun, and its digital wings melted.

In most regards, the Polestar 3 should be a strong contender for our award. An all-new vehicle from a brand that desperately needed one, the 3 is a design-forward, high-performance midsize electric SUV from a brand hoping to be the Porsche of electric vehicles. On paper, its pricing, performance, driving range, and charging speed are all competitive.

Unfortunately, the software isn’t finished. Polestar sent us two versions, a standard Long Range rear-drive car and a dual-motor all-wheel-drive Performance model, and both experienced issues. The standard car had a bug in its electrically actuated door handles, which forced judges to pull on them as many as five times to open a door from the outside. The more expensive Performance model had working door handles but couldn’t recognize its own keycard. Much cursing could be heard across our staging area as judges tapped and swiped and held the card over and over and over trying to start the vehicle. This was especially frustrating when it began to rain, because the windows won’t roll up unless the car is turned on. Frankly, if you can’t get door handles and keys right, can you call yourself a serious car company?

It's a pity, because we really liked driving both of them. Neither is quite as sharp as the Porsche Macan EV around our handling course, but Polestar is very much on the right track and only a half-step behind. Much like the Porsche, there’s very little difference in how the rear-drive and all-wheel-drive car behave, with the latter simply being quicker. What’s more, it does all this without punishing you with a horrible ride, though the base model could do with less vertical motion.

We have less kind things to say about the controls. Judges complained consistently about the unlabeled, touch-sensitive steering wheel controls, which bring up a display in the instrument cluster to tell you what they do but only if the function they’re tied to is active. We were also frustrated by the power mirror and steering wheel adjustments, which are buried three menus deep in the center screen. Similarly, the single control knob for the power seats requires you to scroll through functions by pressing the center button; it reeks of cost-cutting just as much as the damnable dual-function window switches.

As much as we like the design, sustainable materials, passenger space, cargo room, and driving experience, the wonky controls and enraging software glitches turned us off. If Polestar had simply tried to reinvent fewer things, it would have had a finalist on its hands.

This review was conducted as part of our 2026 SUV of the Year (SUVOTY) testing, where each vehicle is evaluated on our six key criteria: efficiency, design, safety, engineering excellence, value, and performance of intended function. Eligible vehicles must be all-new or significantly revised.

Scott Evans

Were you one of those kids who taught themselves to identify cars at night by their headlights and taillights? I was. I was also one of those kids with a huge box of Hot Wheels and impressive collection of home-made Lego hot rods. I asked my parents for a Power Wheels Porsche 911 for Christmas for years, though the best I got was a pedal-powered tractor. I drove the wheels off it. I used to tell my friends I’d own a “slug bug” one day. When I was 15, my dad told me he would get me a car on the condition that I had to maintain it. He came back with a rough-around-the-edges 1967 Volkswagen Beetle he’d picked up for something like $600. I drove the wheels off that thing, too, even though it was only slightly faster than the tractor. When I got tired of chasing electrical gremlins (none of which were related to my bitchin’ self-installed stereo, thank you very much), I thought I’d move on to something more sensible. I bought a 1986 Pontiac Fiero GT and got my first speeding ticket in that car during the test drive. Not my first-ever ticket, mind you. That came behind the wheel of a Geo Metro hatchback I delivered pizza in during high school. I never planned to have this job. I was actually an aerospace engineering major in college, but calculus and I had a bad breakup. Considering how much better my English grades were than my calculus grades, I decided to stick to my strengths and write instead. When I made the switch, people kept asking me what I wanted to do with my life. I told them I’d like to write for a car magazine someday, not expecting it to actually happen. I figured I’d be in newspapers, maybe a magazine if I was lucky. Then this happened, which was slightly awkward because I grew up reading Car & Driver, but convenient since I don’t live in Michigan. Now I just try to make it through the day without adding any more names to the list of people who want to kill me and take my job.

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