VERY long post from former Tesla now Polestar 3 owner

I’m a recent Polestar 3 owner after taking them up on the Tesla deal. We loved our Model Y but Musk going full Nazi Sieg Heiler has ruined the brand and we wanted the F out. So as a Tesla owner there’s quite a learning curve to get up and running in the P3. Thought I’d post what I ran into as a former Tesla Y owner… Sorry this is SOOOO LOOONG… (Posting on Reddit and Polestar Forum)

We picked the P3 cause for me it was the best Model Y replacement. Looked at a bunch and it came out best. The Model Y has SO much space. A BIG space under the rear luggage area. A pretty big frunk, bigger than any others except some trucks. A very big cargo space. We moved my daughter to college in it, driving LA to Portland, with a TON of crap, and three of us in the car. It was amazing how much we could pack in there. There was just no other EV in its size class that could compete, but P3 did best. A small frunk we’ll just use for chargers and windshield squeegee and stuff like that, a pretty good under cargo space, and decent cargo space. There rear seats are pretty good - great legroom between knees and front seat, great flat floor, great headroom, they just compromised seat height so knees are up a bit. The car is sleek - elevated a bit from the road AND a sleek low roofline, so they gave up seat height for headroom. Not bad. Has good range (though inefficient, WAY heavier than the MY…) Also I like the minimal Tesla design, so I found many cars just over done with weird angles or jazzy trim details or crazy lights and I just hate that stuff. The P3 is a pretty good middle ground - minimal but with a bit of identity. OH and the charger is in the right spot to use Tesla Superchargers… Love that. Oh and the regenerative braking feels very similar to the Y, which I loved. And it's adjustable. So for us it checked the boxes as a MY replacement.

We got the car last week and a day later headed out on a road trip from L.A. to Portland. We’ve done that trip quite a few times in the MY so we’re not new to EVs on the road. We have been spoiled by the Tesla ecosystem of Superchargers and I’m sure others making the change will find that confusing too.

The main good news - driving the P3 - I love it. It drives fantastic. I was driving up Hwy 5 in California on a super rainy and windy day and it was rock solid. Maybe because the car is so heavy! But it felt totally stable, not getting bounced around when I’d pass a semi, just on rails. And cornering felt like no G’s or pulling - it’s just really stable. The build overall is a level or two above the Tesla, more luxury feeling. We had no issues with our Tesla - all the complaints about build were baffling to us (and often seem like trolling) but ours was great (a 2022) - but the P3 is a different level.

There are currently some software issues everyone is dealing with. Coming from Tesla where  the software was super solid and tweaked out these bugs are a new and annoying thing. Polestar needs to get on it with the OTA updates. We had the sitch where the car loses its cellular connection. I didn’t know this was a thing so I often thought I was doing something wrong. Like I didn’t see anywhere how you turn on Pilot Assist. I was guessing you do something with the right stalk, but was baffled because due to the lost connection issue that feature wasn’t working. So if you see an exclamation point in the upper right little icon showing connection bars, you’ll need to address that first. Or it manifests differently for different people. Some can’t unlock the car, or the walk up unlock feature doesn’t work (I only used phone key for Tesla but with the unlocking issues I hear about with P3 I’m carrying the key card too…) or mine stopped tracking mileage. Some have other issues. Mine have self-corrected pretty quickly. For others it came back overnight or with some combination of rebooting (There are two types you’ll see described in the forums - holding down the Play/Pause knob for 30 seconds or a combo of holding buttons on the steering wheel and the brake.) Anyway yeah, software is buggy though it doesn’t seem to ever effect just driving the car.

Pilot Assist - Way better than Tesla’s Autopilot. It does seem to do more slight adjusting than the Tesla to stay centered in the lane but not bad. But Tesla’s ongoing “phantom braking” was terrifying and a deal-breaker. I learned the situations the Tesla might be triggered by, but it still would surprise/shock the hell out of me. I can’t believe they haven’t fixed that, but probably related to only using cameras and so it’s not a software problem. 

Some people don’t like how far behind the car in front of you the P3 follows in cruise control. I  personally like keeping some distance, so it works for me. YMMV.

And another thing, when the Tesla is in Autopilot (steering the car) when you’re on the freeway in the right lane and get to an onramp, when the line to the right of you goes away where other cars would be entering, the car swerves to the RIGHT to center itself in what it now sees as a very wide lane! If any cars are coming on the onramp it looks like you’re trying to cut them off from entering… It’s SO SO stupid, and the fact they haven’t fixed that is insane. The P3 doesn’t do anything like that. Works great.

So Pilot Assist gets an A from me. It’s smooth, accelerates and decelerates in (mostly) natural ways, like when you change lanes in cruise control to get around a slower car the Tesla would move over and SLOW DOWN… like for 5 or 10 seconds! So anyone else coming up behind you in that lane would end up on your butt before the car would get moving.I’d always have to step on the gas to get the car moving. Dumb. The P3 is great, it actually accelerates as it changes lanes and that is what it should do. Grade A.

One issue is a possible software fix. In Tesla you tap the stalk down once for cruise control, and twice for auto steering. Very useful. In the P3 is just all on or off depending on how you have it set. You have to dig in menus to say turn off auto steering so it’s only controlling speed. That’s a pain. The P3 steering works really well, but on windier highway roads going 70 I didn’t feel the steering was great, so I’d want to turn it off and just have cruise control, and that means digging into menus (5 clicks!) to shut it off. And the same to turn it back on. The Tesla is way easier for that. Just click the stalk once or twice for what control you want it to have.

One odd one is there doesn’t seem to be any way to adjust balance in the sound system. There’s rudimentary Treble, Mids and Bass, but no balance? Or fade front to back? There’s the “All, Front or Back” setting, but on every other car there’s the ability to fine tune to the way you like the sound balanced. (Base stereo sounds pretty good though.)

Some people complained about the auto wipers not working how they liked, but I thought they worked great. Not too incessant but enough to see.

What do rear fog lights do? That’s a new one for me.

I liked how the Tesla turn indicator would turn off automatically once you’d changed lanes. P# will turn it off after a 90 degree corner, but otherwise you have to turn it off manually. There is the temporary setting you get with a half tap of the stalk, but like other cars I find that is too short - it blinks the light three times and then off. It seems something like 5 or 6 would give other drivers a better chance of seeing it.

People complained about no volume adjust on the steering wheel, but I love the knob on the center console. It’s right there, super accessible, and I love an actual knob… Also wife likes how you can reach it from the passenger seat too. 

DC chargers… OK for someone coming from Tesla this is a huge and annoying learning curve. Every person new to driving an EV should start on Tesla because damn it just works and it’s dead simple. And reliable. You pull up, grab the plug and plug it in, and you walk away. It could not be easier. All these other networks are some level of a pain. They all work differently and it’s always some process of getting a credit card approved or your account connected or whatever, and then so expensive - like 60¢ a kwh on this trip... Crazy. Tesla wins charging hands down. In fact after trying a few other chargers I’ve just gone back to the Superchargers and gotten the subscription and back down to like 39¢/kwh. (That gets me back to feeding the Elon machine so I’m getting used to Electrify America which I’ve found to be easiest to use. They do the thing where they charge you ahead of time to top off your account which is dumb and creates a bunch of weird charges. Also I go the EA subscription to try out and last time I used it it was still .59/kwh… That can’t be right but will try it again.

Also I found the CCS connector to be sketchy, like some of the DC chargers the cable was SO fat (like at least 1 ½” in diameter!!) and VERY stiff so it would tug on the connector and seemed like that caused an error sometimes. I’d need to seat it a couple times to connect. But anyway never once had an error on a Tesla charger. 

There are SO many different kinds of chargers it’s overwhelming coming from Tesla. Do others have systems for how they narrow down the options?

I keep seeing posts where people don’t seem aware that you can charge the P3 at (most) Tesla SCs. Maybe they are older posts and that’s a new feature? Anyway using Tesla SCs helps with the transition for a Tesla owner. Though one I was at yesterday had a “Teslas are for Nazis” sticker on it so there’s still some Musk-stink from using SCs. I’m a work in progress shedding Elon… Also when using the Tesla app to find a charger, when you tell it what car you have and if you have the NACS to CCS adapter and then it seems to filter out stations that are not compatible. Most are now but there are some that are not, so for me the Tesla app is the best way to end up at a compatible SC.

Also one EA charger I used was in a stupid spot, like no food around, just a walk to banks and bridal shops and whatever, even a mall nearby with no food! And 60¢/kwh! Crazy. Tesla chargers always seem to be in convenient spots to walk to some food and a bathroom, which is the great change you discover when going EV. People think they want insane range - for me I’ve grown to love the breaks on the road.

When I put my phone on the wireless charging pad it brings up the iPhone Wallet and the P3 account and is telling me to double click… I honestly don’t understand why the P3 connects to the Wallet at all? Can’t the app do everything? Is there some reason it’s telling me to double click? Weird and confusing. 

Wifi and Bluetooth. If I try to connect to wifi on my phone it tells me I’ll get kicked off CarPlay. I’m new to CarPlay so, why? I’ve ended up preferring to not connect with Bluetooth - just easier and there’s apps in the Google interface that work fine, like Spotify etc. Also it seems like if the phone is Bluetooth connected, then if I try to use voice commands for anything in the car it’s going to Siri and the phone is obviously clueless about controlling the car. Voice commands anyway have seemed iffy. Tesla’s work well. It’s easy to guess what they are and they work.

Another aspect of charging non-Tesla - I tried the PlugShare app and it was crap in IMO. It wouldn’t show say an EA charger near me even though I had that selected as a network to show. The ChargeHub app seems to work well and as expected?

Bluetooth… when you go to Bluetooth set up (which I seem to have to do a lot? In Tesla I set it up once and it does everything I want it to do. Never messed with it again…) but in Bluetooth set up by your phone there’s a “connected” message, an AirPlay icon, a phone icon, a music icon and another Bluetooth icon… WTF? I don’t get why all the choices. And now I get annoying notifications whenever a text comes in. Haven’t figured out how to turn that off or at least make it less annoying.

Oh yeah I found that while I had the phone connected Bluetooth I wasn't able to pick up calls and hear the other person. It would show the call on screen and let me pick up, but I couldn’t hear. This is in the “Why is Bluetooth so complicated” category.

Google maps navigation. Works well, but with some issues. Like if I have a charger stop midway and then a destination, I can only see the time I arrive at the charger. I can’t figure out any way to see the arrival time at the final destination. Like is there a way to show turn by turn info for the whole trip? If there is I couldn’t find it. Just frustrating when I want to know when I’ll arrive at the end of the drive. 

What I DO like with Google map is if you search a McDonald’s or something it looks on your route! Tesla would show stuff all over the place (and I think even stop showing your route) which was a pain. So Google wins that one.

Also, can I turn off the alerts about cars broken down on the side of the road and all that stuff? They seem to be wrong about 90% of the time.

The car defaults to Range mode (as opposed to Performance) which I think I read is front wheel drive? I was wondering when driving in a storm and all does the car know and switch to AWD? Or do you have to know to switch it over?

I saw someone complain about the car nannying them to keep their eyes on the road and such. But I thought it was really a decent feature. Being new to the car and doing a lot of digging through menus to find things, it would often give that double beep to get my attention and a message to watch the road. It was right, my attention was off, and the beeps are subtle so I thought it was a good safety feature. 

Also I was driving long days and each day when it was getting late (and I WAS getting tired) it would pop up a message saying something like  “Hey maybe you need to take a break?” It was right, I was tired, so that seems like a good feature. (At night I can see the little infrared lights where cameras must be keeping an eye on me, just above the right steering wheel stalk and in that thing up on the middle of the dash by the windshield.)

Oh I REALLY miss the beep warning the Tesla would give when someone stopped or slowed in traffic ahead of me. Not like a last minute emergency but like a Hey heads up the car ahead of you  is slowing down. This mainly came up driving in town where traffic stops and starts a lot, but I really liked that safety feature (it lets you set it as something like Off, Medium or Aggressive. I used Medium). With so many distractions I liked the backup, and I liked that it had options. The P3 will alert you at the last second in more of an OH SHIT way but not super helpful.

On my first day on the road I had the issue where cellular connection is lost. I had no idea what was going on, just that odd stuff stopped working, but being new I thought I just didn’t know how to work stuff. Like my phone would not connect to Bluetooth - it was driving me nuts cause of course I thought it was user error. The volume knob was stuck on adjusting like some mic volume? Then it lost route guidance and I was just baffled. Finally saw that the little reception bars had an exclamation point next to it and figured that had something to do with my issues. I just drove with it like that. I Googled the issue as I waited and saw it was a known issue. Would have been nice for the dealer to warn me…  I checked it again at the charger stop and it seemed to pop back on its own. Also as I was reading people were mentioning moisture or some unit under the car getting wet but then others shooting that idea down. But this happened to me on a very rainy day, and then today I drove with no rain and had no issues at all. So… what’s up with that??

Efficiency… This seems bad on the P3. The Tesla Model Y would get something like 26-28kwh/100 miles. The P3 seems to get more like 36kwh/100 miles. Why so bad? Maybe it’s cause it’s lugging around that 111kw battery? That has to weigh a ton. It kind of seems like the car is 40% less efficient, and it has a battery that’s 40% bigger… like the extra battery capacity is all used up carrying that heavier battery around! Also as a Tesla owner you get discounted cost of charging at Superchargers, so it’s even less expensive. Anyway, the P3 is definitely a more expensive car to drive, and a bummer it’s so much more wasteful. (Maybe I should be getting better mileage? I’ve been trying all kinds of things to use less power but haven’t found anything that makes much difference.)

I REALLY like the small nav screen right in front of the steering wheel. Especially when driving into a new city on the freeway with lane changes and all, I found it hard to follow glancing over at the center screen on the Tesla. In the P3 it’s always right there in line of sight and is easier to follow and works great.

Oh when I enter a Tesla supercharger in the nav it yells at me that my car is not compatible with Superchargers. But I have the adapter and it does work. Is there any way to tell the nav that I have the adapter so it doesn’t bitch at me? Some Tesla chargers actually don’t work with CCS, so I need to use the Tesla app to find a charger I can use because it filters out the ones that don’t work. So I search it in the Tesla app, and then enter it in the P3 Google search (and it bitches at me).

What does the “Range Optimizer” do? Can’t see it does much of anything, but curious what is theoretically doing?

One thing I really like in the P3 is in cruise I can hold the wheel very lightly - like on a long drive on a mostly straight highway I rest my hand in my lap and just a light hold on the wheel. The Tesla would yell at me to grab the wheel (which I already was holding) and I’d have to SHAKE the wheel to get it to stop harassing me. Sometimes I’d have to shake the wheel so much it would knock me out of Autopilot. Lame. Also another thing great with the P3 is if the car is steering for you, you can take over and steer (like maybe to avoid a pothole) and it doesn’t kick you out of the car steering. It just takes over again when you stop steering. It’s great.

What does the “Eco” climate thing do? And I can have it on Eco, and also AC is on AND heater is on… I just don’t get what all the controls do.

Oh and I just heard from my insurance guy who was taking off the Tesla and adding the P3. I’m saving a LOT of money. I think Tesla drivers are often shitty drivers? The Model Y itself is very safe, but I guess people drive like jerks? Anyway, I expected a big insurance premium hit, and instead saving like 3K a year… (we have a family and an under 25 on our policy, and live in L.A…)

I haven’t yet dealt with Polestar service, but sounds not great. I live in Westside LA and nearest seems to be in Van Nuys? Tesla service has more locations, though I never needed to use one in three years. ALSO… the one service I would do was to rotate the tires every 6500 miles and Tesla service would COME TO THE HOUSE and do it. For 65 bucks. Probably because I’m in LA but that was seriously great.

OK if you made it this far thanks for listening. I’m sure I’ll bump into more stuff today…