Trust me when I tell you, there is no form of vehicle testing more rigorous than a road trip with a toddler in bad traffic.
“Are you sure you don’t want to just take the Outback?”
This was a regular refrain from my husband ahead of our weekend trip to the family beach house in the Polestar 2 Long Range Single Motor.
I’ll admit that taking an electric car on a longer road trip adds a certain level of mental gymnastics that my tired, overloaded brain can’t always accommodate.
RELATED: Read our full ownership review of the Polestar 2
Where will we stop to charge if we need? How much range is enough? What if the outdoor powerpoint at the beach house doesn’t work? Do we have an extension cord long enough to reach?
Talk about first world problems.
Adding a second layer of complexity is the fact my family is well and truly accustomed to SUV life and the Polestar 2 is a sedan.
The 405L boot in the Polestar certainly feels a lot smaller than our Subaru Outback’s 522L boot, and packing it to the brim with all our equipment took a bit more strategy than usual.
Once we squeezed our three overnight bags and a couple of bags of firewood into the boot, we were at capacity.
As a result, we had to distribute the rest of our baggage – a travel pram and several bags of supermarket shopping – across the back seat.
On the way there…
Packed to the brim and full of nervous trepidation, we set off on the one-and-a-half-hour drive with 93 per cent battery capacity and 410km of range.
My 18-month-old son is deep in the throes of his ‘no patience’ era, so my husband had to sit in the back seat to entertain him.
At roughly 188cm tall, my husband found the lack of head room meant he couldn’t sit fully upright, but had plenty of leg room.
Anyone who loves a good road trip knows the soundtrack is crucial, but unfortunately the car’s in-built Spotify app lost connection and wouldn’t load any music five minutes into the trip, meaning we had to turn to the Bluetooth connection for some tunes.
Thankfully, the Spotify app eventually found its footing again without any help from me, and it appeared the problem was a temporary internet connectivity issue.
I’ve had similar problems with Google Maps loading during my time with the car, suggesting coverage from the car’s onboard SIM card might be patchy.
Otherwise, the drive was uneventful and the car proved a capable and comfortable companion on the freeway.
Our 130km trip burned through 110km of projected range and 26 per cent battery capacity, returning an average energy consumption figure of 15.6kWh/100km. Not bad at all.
Upon arrival
Once we arrived at our destination – a small beach town along the Great Ocean Road – the Polestar 2 was a little less at home on gravel roads, clunking into potholes and feeling less surefooted on steep, rocky inclines than our Subaru Outback.
However, it had just enough ground clearance to tackle the beach house’s perilously steep driveway, which has seen other sedans bottom out dramatically.
With no more driving planned for the day, I plugged the car into the beach house’s outdoor powerpoint and set the charge rate to 10 amps, for fear of blowing a fuse in our ageing beach house’s electrical system.
The car had 59 per cent battery capacity when I started charging it at 7.20pm, and managed to reach 91 per cent by 8.31am the next day – adding 32 per cent battery charge, or roughly 150km of range. More than enough for my peace of mind.
We ventured out for breakfast bright and early, only to find that the car’s 360-degree camera had once again dropped out, displaying a “camera temporarily unavailable” warning.
I was forced to reset the infotainment system once again in order to avoid having to blindly navigate the foliage-laden driveway.
Pulling up to the local cafe, I drew more than a few stares from locals, several of whom enquired about the car, asking where it was from and why it was so quiet.
Surprisingly, I wasn’t the sole Polestar 2 driver in town, and I spotted a Standard Range Single Motor variant parked outside the newsagent, in the same shade of Magnesium.
I’m not proud to admit I immediately felt a little less special.
After breakfast, we journeyed to the beach, where my son promptly covered himself in wet sand.
Loading him back into the car with his little gumboots crusted over, I shivered in horror as the Polestar’s spotless, minimalist interior was transformed into a portable beach.
Somehow, dirt and sand looks a little more natural in our Subaru Outback.
In the Polestar’s defence, however, the WeaveTech seats are impressively easy to clean and don’t absorb sand to the same extent as other fabric seats I’ve encountered.
It was easy enough to brush off my son’s sandy souvenirs and retain some semblance of cleanliness.
On the way home…
The trip home from the beach house was decidedly less enjoyable than the way there.
Unfortunately, a three-car accident on the Geelong Road meant a 40-minute delay as we sat in standstill traffic and regretted all of our life choices.
Even with Google Map’s live updates, the traffic jam was unavoidable, with the accident occurring mere minutes ahead of us – meaning we arrived just in time for all lanes to begin crawling.
All we could do was watch the red line on Google Maps spread like wildfire along our route, with no exit in sight.
My son’s patience wore as thin as one of The Wiggles’ trademark turtlenecks and my husband, who had spent the first half of the journey in the back seat, became claustrophobic and car sick.
Indeed, it does seem the back seat of the Polestar 2 offers a noticeably rougher ride than the front seat, and the diminished head room doesn’t help matters.
Meanwhile, the front seat lost its lustre too, mainly due to the WeaveTech seats, which don’t breathe all that well and can lead to the dreaded ‘sweaty back syndrome’.
With all the stop-start traffic, I also turned the one-pedal drive mode off and switched creep mode on because I found the jolting movement too much to handle. That went some way to counteracting the car-sickness.
It was an uncharacteristically warm Melbourne day and the sun bore down on us as we sat in traffic, but the tinted glass roof successfully cut through the sun’s glare and, with the climate control on, the car remained comfortably cool.
The entire two-and-a-half-hour journey used 25 per cent of the car’s battery and consumption was even lower than on the way to the beach, clocking in at 15.4kWh/100km despite the one-pedal function being deactivated.
In general, I’ve been impressed with the Polestar 2’s energy consumption and range estimates, which have been pretty spot-on, leaving little room for range anxiety.
Upon reflection
The Polestar 2 makes for a comfortable cruiser on longer trips, provided you’re in the front seat.
Adult occupants could grow restless in the back seat after an hour or so, with a slightly rougher ride and less head room making it less hospitable.
The boot can easily accommodate enough luggage for a couple on a weekend away, but might prove more limiting for families, while the interior practicality is serviceable but not particularly well suited to sticky toddler fingers.
The Long Range Single Motor variant has more than enough electric range to keep you from encountering any real charging conundrums, and the onboard trip computer provides plenty of information on live consumption to keep you informed and prepared.
As a front-wheel-drive sedan, its capabilities on rockier terrains are somewhat diminished compared to an SUV, but it can handle dirt roads provided you’re willing to drive slowly and cautiously.
A real deal-sweetener is the Harman Kardon sound system – part of the $6000 Plus Pack – but unfortunately I spent the majority of our road trip using it to blare The Wiggles’ greatest hits. Tragic.
The post Sun, sand and traffic jams: The Polestar 2 tackles a family road trip appeared first on Drive.
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