The Polestar 1 is a true hybrid.
The sports car has 70 miles of electric range on its plug-in battery, making it one of the biggest battery packs in a car that also takes gas. The closest competitor is the Honda Clarity PHEV with 47 electric miles.
I was given access to a Polestar 1 for just over a week and decided to put the battery to work with an electric challenge: to get around for five days using only battery power on the $156,000 hybrid.
During that time I drove around the Bay Area and ventured north on a surf trip up the coast to Bolinas in Marin County. I mapped out where free charging stations were located and downloaded a popular charging network app, ChargePoint, in case I needed more juice while on the go. I dutifully plugged in the car each night in my garage so the “tank” would be as full as possible for the next day of driving.
Polestar, a spinoff performance car brand from Volvo, is already transitioning to electric-only vehicles and will make its final hybrid Polestar 1 later this year. The Polestar 1 was its first vehicle in 2019, and the Polestar 2 came out last year as a $59,900 truly electric sedan with 260 miles of range.
But for this challenge I was in the original Polestar, which is an eye-catching sports car with a price tag that aligns with its sleek look. On the car screen you can select which type of drive mode you want: AWD, Hybrid, Power, or Pure. Pure was the purely electric option. I selected that, strapped on my board, and headed north from San Francisco for 35 miles to the small coastal town on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge.
The electric challenge on a hybrid Polestar 1.
Image: sasha lekach / mashable
As soon as I was off the main freeway out of SF and curving around Highway 1’s hilly turns, my small battery depleted quickly. I couldn’t wait for a downhill section as I finally approached the Bolinas surf beach, which I knew was far from any charging stations. I hoped in vain to replenish my draining battery with some regenerative braking and downhill energy, even if this generates a nominal amount of energy. My next charging opportunity was about 20 miles inland at a shopping center en Corte Madera.
By the time I’d made it to the beach after the curvy, mostly uphill drive, I saw the advantage of a bigger battery. With a bigger range electric vehicle, like any Tesla or the Nissan Leaf or Chevy Bolt EV, all with easily more than 200 miles of battery range, I would’ve handily taken on this trip and the return ride. In one of those EVs I wouldn’t break a sweat or pray for some downhill reinforcements.
But the Polestar 1 isn’t a “true” EV. It’s a hybrid. And hybrids are made to be just that: a blend of electric and gasoline energy. With a full tank combined with the electric battery, the car can go up to 540 miles.
Once the electric battery had drained to zero miles —shortly after emerging from the forest past Muir Woods National Monument and only about seven miles from my beach destination — the car automatically switched me over to hybrid mode, starting to use the gas and attempting to recharge the battery a bit. The car says this mode is for “everyday use.”
As I drove into that sleepy beachside town in hybrid mode I was a bit disappointed that my battery couldn’t get me there. But I wasn’t that surprised after seeing how much battery it took to drive up and over the headlands to the coast.
Made it! But I definitely dipped into the gas tank.
Image: Sasha Lekach / mashable
All the modes, except electric.
Image: sasha lekach / mashable
On my way back from surfing I stopped for a food pit stop where a ChargePoint charger was available in front of the restaurant. I plugged in for about an hour (my first hour of charging was free with the ChargePoint app) to attempt to return to San Francisco using more electricity than gas. I got the battery up from about three miles to about 13 miles on the ChargePoint’s Level 2 charger, which didn’t quite get me back home.
Charging up a hybrid.
Image: sasha Lekach / mashable
Once back at home I could use the home charger that connected to a regular wall outlet plug. That was slow overnight charging, taking more than nine hours to reach a full charge, but necessary so that the next day I could try to ride on as much electric power as possible.
After a few days of my electric experiment, I admit that it was reassuring to have a full tank of gas as a backup. I’m not alone in my (mild) range anxiety.
Car shopping site CarGurus polled nearly 1,100 car owners in February and found that hybrid and electric vehicle options are neck-and-neck as potential future car purchases for the next year. But further down the road, EVs eventually start to pull ahead.
In a different car shopping survey from Autolist, more than 60 percent of 1,800 surveyed in April 2021 said range was the most important factor for buying an EV — even more than car price.
So I couldn’t complete my self-imposed electric challenge on the Polestar’s relatively small battery. But when I was forced onto hybrid mode I enjoyed the car more, as it felt more powerful and efficient using the it the way it was designed. I could rev past slower cars, and I may have slipped into “Power mode” a few times to see how fast I could accelerate. Back in hybrid mode, the ride felt smooth and while it wasn’t as quiet as “Pure” electric driving, it still felt energy efficient.
Besides, the Polestar 1 was never meant to be a pure electric car. That’s what the Polestar 2 is all about.