If you spend long enough in London, especially around Canary Wharf, you become accustomed to noticing some very nice cars driving amidst the shadows of glass towers, writes our motoring journalist, Tim Barnes-Clay
Audi RS e-tron GTs, Porsche Taycans, and the occasional Aston Martin or Bentley are commonly seen.
Now Polestar – the Swedish automotive marque that makes premium, design-led electric cars – is offering professionals something a tad different to drive around in.
The new Polestar 5 is an electric grand tourer that blends supercar performance with the luxury and long-distance competence you might expect from a high-end legacy whip.
And Polestar UK Managing Director Matt Galvin has a good idea of who will want it.
“I’d say it’s the thinking man’s Porsche Taycan,” he tells me.
That is a confident statement, but after sampling both flavours of the Polestar 5, I can see why he makes the comparison.
Style and Substance
Developed from the Precept concept with surprisingly few changes, the production car has a slick, aviation-inspired form and is made from bonded aluminium.
The four-door vehicle is light and rigid, and Polestar claims it has torsional rigidity superior to that of a two-seater sports car or supercar.
But even without all that, I’d still want the low-slung Polestar 5 for its looks alone.
Fortunately, it delivers on all fronts.
Sharp and Capable
I drove the Polestar 5 Dual Motor and Performance versions, and the former isn’t exactly slow.
Indeed, describing it as the more levelheaded of the two doesn’t do it justice.
It is pin-you-to-your-seat quick, yet exquisitely controlled. Point the car towards a sequence of bends, and it slices through them like a laser through frosted glass, with the chassis feeling calm and planted beneath your backside.
The 550kW (737bhp) Dual Motor delivers 812Nm of torque and does the sacred 0-60mph in 3.8 seconds. That’s enough to make overtaking on a British A or B-road almost preposterously easy.
The only slight fly in the ointment for me is the front seats – they feel a little firm.
That is where the Performance version gets interesting. Its more advanced MagneRide adaptive damping gives the 5 a smoother ride, easing the seats’ firmness and making the overall driving experience feel more sumptuous.
Peachy Performance
And yet, the Polestar 5 Performance version borders on beautifully unhinged.
The numbers give you more than a hint of what it’s capable of before you even sit in it. With 650kW (871bhp), 1,015Nm and a 0-60mph time of 3.1 seconds, you already know this car will thoroughly rearrange your corporate priorities.
But those figures don’t fully prepare you for the real-world sensation. The acceleration is so immediate that it makes you grateful for the engineering of the headrests. It doesn’t lack manners, but the Polestar 5 Performance will absolutely hijack the road with the silent, shocking efficiency of a corporate restructuring.
My colleague discovered this quite amusingly. At one point, when it was my mischievous co-driver’s turn in the hot seat, he deliberately stamped on the accelerator just as I was lifting a peach-flavoured can of water towards my lips. None of it made it into my mouth. Quite a lot went over my face, T-shirt and coat.
Naturally, revenge was required. Later, I planted my size-11 firmly on the go pedal while his reading glasses were perched on top of his head. The burst of speed promptly pushed them behind his neck. Payback, in electric form.
Is it possible the Performance version has more muscle than the average commute requires? Maybe.
Does it offer a high return on investment in terms of pure, unadulterated, wicked entertainment? No question.
Built for London
For a car expected to navigate London’s chaotic traffic at least some of the time, being largely engineered in the UK means the Polestar 5 also speaks the language of potholes and speed humps.
The Dual Motor has sophisticated BWI passive dampers and internal rebound coil springs, and, as mentioned earlier, the Performance gets MagneRide adaptive dampers. This advanced suspension system can read the road up to 1,000 times a second and react within three milliseconds. The result is excellent body motion control and an optimal response at all speeds.
Braking is handled by Brembo four-piston callipers in combination with lightweight 400mm two-piece discs, while Michelin tyres, designed for the Polestar 5’s chosen wheel combinations ranging from 20 to 22 inches, complete the package.
Galvin reiterates the car has been engineered with British roads specifically in mind.
“It’s been developed here,” he says. “So it handles great.”
Having personally driven the 5 in both forms, I can confirm the engineering hasn’t been squandered on a vehicle designed merely for posing outside a London office.
That said, the grand tourer does posing brilliantly.
Business Lounge on Wheels
The Polestar 5 has another side to its character that could prove particularly significant in London.
Its design delivers a spacious rear seating area by repositioning the header structure behind the passengers’ heads and using a digital rear-view mirror with a virtual rear window, similar to the Polestar 4.
The back seats can cool, heat, individually recline and massage – and rear passengers can control the four-zone climate system. A nifty ‘foot garage’ within the battery structure also creates extra foot space behind the front chairs, meaning occupants in the back have a more natural seating position.
But wait, there’s more. The 5 is primarily a four-seater, although if you lift the central armrest, the 2+2 car effectively becomes a five-seater. The Polestar also has 365 litres of rear boot space, while the 62-litre front luggage area is handy for a small bag and charging cable.
The cabin itself is minimalist, with natural-fibre materials, recycled textiles and a massive panoramic glass roof measuring over two metres long.
Up front, the Recaro-developed seats marry a low driving position with decent bolstering – although, as alluded to before, even more cushioning wouldn’t go amiss. They come finished in Charcoal MicroTech, or optional Bridge of Weir Nappa leather in Zinc or Charcoal.
Between the front seats is a low centre console with a lockable storage compartment, topped with a rotary audio controller for the 14.5-inch portrait touchscreen. The unit runs Polestar’s Android Automotive operating system with Google built in, alongside a nine-inch digital instrument screen and slightly bigger head-up display.
Audio comes via the Polestar High-Performance Audio system with 10 speakers, or you can up the ante with 21 speakers courtesy of Bowers & Wilkins, with 1,680 watts of power. The latter’s fidelity is so clean, you can almost hear the recording engineer sipping his brew.
In other words, the Polestar 5 won’t make you regret your life choices during a two-hour traffic jam on the M11.
From London to Heathrow
London isn’t short on power and might, and as you’ll know by now, nor is this new grand tourer. But if you’re in business in the City, the only number that might truly dictate your sanity is your electric car’s range.
Therefore, you’ll be pleased to read that the Polestar 5 Dual Motor has an official maximum range of 416 miles on a single charge, while the Performance version offers up to 351 miles.
An 800V electrical architecture enables the Polestar flagship to charge at up to 350kW on an appropriate DC charger. A 10-80% battery refill can take just 22 minutes, and an external indicator on the car’s C-pillar gives a first-glance indication of the 5’s state of charge.
Galvin is relaxed and reassuring about any anxiety over electric range.
“I do 20,000 miles a year, and I can count them on one hand, the number of times I do 300 miles in a day.”
His point is straightforward. For most trips, a 350-plus-mile electric vehicle already offers more than many people need.
So, if your working life revolves around London, Heathrow Airport, and the odd long motorway journey, the Polestar 5’s mix of range and rapid charging is especially relevant.
Prestige and Presence
There is also the image element. I mean, let’s be honest, while standard cars handle your commute, expensive vehicles manage your reputation. Because, in certain parts of London, the whip outside the office can say almost as much as the person inside it.
Consequently, design matters – and the Polestar 5 certainly has presence.
“I drove it around central London last week,” Galvin tells me.
“If you want to get noticed, this is a car for you.”
He says that while travelling through Hammersmith and Wandsworth, people absorbed in their phones suddenly looked up as the Polestar passed.
“They’d look up and do a double take.”
I know what he means. From every angle, the Polestar 5 looks big-ticket, prestigious and utterly modern. It has the visual presence of a car whose driver has made it in life.
A New Choice
The Polestar 5 Dual Motor Launch edition starts at £89,500, and the Performance Launch edition at £104,900.
That puts the electric grand tourer solidly into the premium automotive arena, and that’s exactly where Polestar wants it.
The company is chasing consumers who’ve already experienced the usual suspects and want something that feels fresher, rarer and more distinctive.
As Galvin puts it, the potential customer may already have had a Taycan or an Audi RS e-tron GT and be pondering what comes next.
“Up until now, there wasn’t really an alternative,” he says. “And now there is the Polestar 5”.
So, the 5 gives London’s top executives a clear advantage. It lets them drive a car that radiates wealth while steering clear of their contemporaries’ vanilla choices.
And if your glasses end up behind your neck or you wind up smelling of peaches, that’s merely the price of progress.
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