Polestar broadens the appeal of the 4 with a new SUV

The new Polestar 4 SUV adds space, range and family friendly versatility to the Swedish marque’s most successful model. It is also an acknowledgement that, however sophisticated the electric car becomes, buyers still need somewhere to put the luggage.

The modern electric car has become extraordinarily good at demonstrating what technology can do. It can accelerate with the urgency of a sports car, calculate a charging route across a continent and increasingly hold something approaching a conversation with its driver.

None of which is especially useful when the pushchair will not fit in the boot.

Polestar’s answer is a new SUV version of the Polestar 4, an attempt to broaden the appeal of its most successful model without surrendering the design led character upon which the Swedish manufacturer has built its reputation. Production has already begun in Busan, South Korea, with the first customer deliveries expected during the final quarter of this year.

Prices begin at £54,750.

The premise is straightforward. Polestar has taken the existing 4 coupé and made it more useful.

The rear has been redesigned with a straighter roofline and more upright tailgate, while roof rails can carry loads of up to 100kg. The changes have produced considerably more luggage space without substantially altering the remainder of the body. Polestar says only 48 new parts were required to create the SUV.

There is up to 1,680 litres of storage across the front and rear compartments, with 530 litres behind the rear seats when measured to the seatbacks. Folding those seats increases the rear luggage capacity to 1,665 litres.

This is hardly the glamorous end of automotive engineering, but it may be the more commercially important one.

Electric cars are moving beyond the stage in which novelty alone can persuade buyers. For families considering spending more than £50,000 on their principal car, range and acceleration matter, but so do bicycles, suitcases, shopping bags and the accumulated paraphernalia of ordinary life.

Matt Galvin, managing director of Polestar UK, describes the new model as combining “the usability of an estate with the presence of an SUV”.

That positioning makes sense. The SUV has become one of the defining shapes of the modern car market, yet the estate remains difficult to better when actual carrying capacity is required. Polestar is attempting to borrow from both without allowing the result to become visually cumbersome.

An electric family car with 544hp

Practicality has not resulted in particularly modest performance.

The Polestar 4 SUV is offered with two powertrains. The rear motor version produces 272hp, reaches 62mph in 7.3 seconds and has a claimed WLTP range of up to 391 miles.

The dual motor version produces 544hp and 686Nm of torque. It reaches 62mph in 3.9 seconds and offers up to 373 miles of claimed range. Both use a 100kWh battery and support DC charging at up to 200kW.

Those wanting considerably more performance than the school run requires can specify the Performance pack, which brings recalibrated ZF active dampers, Brembo brakes and 22 inch wheels. Prices for that model begin at £68,250.

There are more meaningful changes for passengers in the back. The revised roof provides an additional 2.5cm of rear headroom, while a larger panoramic glass roof extends towards the tailgate. An optional electrochromic version allows sections of the roof to be dimmed electronically.

Perhaps more notable is the return of something conspicuously absent from the original Polestar 4: a rear window.

The coupé famously dispensed with one, replacing the conventional rear view with a camera system. The SUV restores both a rear window and standard mirror, although customers can still choose the digital mirror if they prefer the wider view or regularly fill the luggage compartment.

It is a small but revealing decision. Innovation is useful when it improves the experience. Sometimes convention survives because it works rather well.

The car becomes a power source

The more interesting technology lies elsewhere.

Vehicle to Load functionality will allow the Polestar 4’s battery to supply electricity to external equipment. Using a separately available adapter, the system can provide up to 3.3kW of power for equipment including electronics, tools and camping appliances. Owners can set a minimum battery level so the car stops supplying external power before compromising the journey home.

A new Camping mode goes further, turning the st

ationary vehicle into a climate controlled space with access to entertainment, ambient lighting, USB C connectivity and other controls.

This begins to demonstrate one of the more interesting possibilities created by electrification. A large battery need not simply propel a car. It can become a portable source of stored energy.

Whether most owners will actually use it to power equipment in the wilderness is another matter. Charging laptops, running equipment away from the mains or providing power during an outdoor trip are rather more plausible everyday uses.

Inside, Polestar has retained the minimalist approach of the existing 4, although software continues to become as important to the character of modern cars as leather, metal and switchgear once were.

Google Gemini replaces more conventional command based voice control, allowing drivers to make requests conversationally and continue an exchange while retaining context. Gemini Live can also be used for functions including journey planning, translation and brainstorming.

There is an irony in the trajectory of the contemporary motor car. Manufacturers spent decades removing distractions from the driver. They are now installing artificial intelligence capable of having a conversation with them.

The difficult business of selling electric cars

Behind the additional luggage space and technology sits a more serious commercial calculation.

The electric car market is entering a less forgiving phase. Manufacturers can no longer rely upon early adopters prepared to accept compromises simply because a vehicle is electric. The next generation of customers expects an EV to perform the ordinary duties of a petrol or diesel car while improving upon them elsewhere.

The Polestar 4 SUV looks designed for precisely that buyer.

Its sustainability credentials remain prominent. Polestar calculates a cradle to gate carbon footprint of 20.2 tonnes of CO2 equivalent for the rear motor version and 21.1 tonnes for the dual motor model. The company says renewable electricity in battery cell production, recycled aluminium and lower carbon aluminium sourcing have contributed to making it one of its lowest carbon vehicles to date.

Interior materials include recycled PET, bio attributed materials and traceable chrome free Nappa leather.

Yet the new model is arguably most interesting for reasons considerably less futuristic.

Polestar has given it a bigger boot, more headroom and a rear window. It can travel a claimed 391 miles, carry the detritus of family life and, when required, provide electricity for the things brought along with it.

There is something encouragingly pragmatic about that.

The electric car does not need to reinvent every aspect of motoring to succeed. Increasingly, its greatest achievement may simply be becoming a very good car.