2025 POLESTAR Polestar 3 Problems & Complaints

The onboard charger has failed twice now in less than 1,800 miles. Bought the car new and it has been in the shop this time for 31 days and parts are not available to fix it until at least Sept. 30th. Also, Volvo Marin never seems to have loaner cars available. Horrible experience with this dealership and car.

Car does not AC charge

AC Charging Fail. Unable to use home charger to charge car even after polestar took car in to replace OBC.

Vehicle has had onboard charger failure twice

Charging on AC power failed. Needed to replace GHCA at dealer, and happened two more times, so 3 trips to the dealer to get a new charging component. Lack of charge left us stranded.

There is a documented bug with Polestar. If you shift the car into reverse, the rear camera comes on (point back, like it should). If you shift out of reverse, and back into reverse, the camera defaults to an overhead view. With this view it is very difficult to see what is behind you. This happens 100% of the time...it is not a "sometimes happens" bug.

When parking the car and putting the car in reverse, the cameras are activated and two views are displayed simultaneously on the head unit: 1) a 360 view is displayed; and 2) rear camera view is displayed. However when putting the car in Drive and then back in Reverse again, only the 360 view displays but NOT the Rear view camera. Subsequently drive / reverse sequences during a parking maneuver do not cause the rear camera to display again, The only way to turn the rear camera back on is to keep the car in reverse and then fiddle with the head unit to tap the appropriate button sequences to turn the rear camera back on. This is not safe.

Activation and persistence of the rearview camera. This situation occurs when selecting reverse, drive and then reverse again in short order (i.e. parallel parking, maneuvering to get into our garage with a narrow driveway and tight turn). When I initially select Reverse, the center display shows both the 360 view and the reverse camera - perfect. When I select Drive to move forward a couple of feet and realign the car, the display switches to show just the 360 view - makes sense. When I then put it back into Reverse to continue parking, the rear view camera does not come back on and only the 360 view is visible. Based on my reading of the regulations, if the car is in reverse, the rear view camera should be active and show on the screen. This is a significant safety issue and one that Polestar claims is not and that their software is operating as designed.

The issue is with the displaying of the rear view camera. When I put the car in reverse the rear view camera displays on the bottom of the screen and the 360 view at the top of the screen as it should. But if I then put the car in drive (like when parallel parking) the display changes to show just the 360 view. Then when I put the car back in reverse only the 360 degree view is shown the reverse camera view is not displayed as required. The only way to get the reverse camera view to display is to tap the screen and click on the Rear view options to get the rear view to display. This is clearly a safety issue and not following federal regulations.

The rear view parking camera software is defective. If you put the car into reverse, the rear parking camera view comes up (as intended). However, if you put the car into drive and then back into reverse (as if you are making some parking adjustments in a parking lot), the rear parking camera view does NOT come back up. In fact, it requires several additional touches on the car's infotainment touchscreen to bring the rear parking camera view back up.

The Polestar 3 failed while driving with my family on 8/16/25. It had a propulsion failure (with "turtle mode") and it would only go 6 mph or less and would not go up a hill. With nowhere safe to pull over while on the hill, I had to perform an unsafe maneuver to get the car down a hill to a safe place. Once parked it showed dashes on the dashboard and would not go into drive or reverse. The car was towed--it could not be placed in neutral so had to be dragged up the platform. It was in the service center for 24 days and returned to me without anything fixed. I learned 5 days ago that the service center had requested replacement of the VCU which was denied by Polestar engineering. I feel the car was returned to me in an unsafe condition. The failure happened again recently but fortunately it was parked and would not start. No warning lights, just dashes again on the dashboard. The vehicle has now been at the repair center for 16 days now (40 days total)--the service center has requested VCU replacement which Polestar engineering has denied again. I have requested my options for buy back / lease termination--I was told it would take 4-6 weeks and customer service is not responding to my inquiries now.

The vehicle loses 2-3% battery a day, while parked. I've communicated with several Polestars reps, from service technicians, corporate support, etc. and no one can offer a fix. Since leasing the vehicle I've estimated I've lost the equivalent of 540% of battery over six months while the vehicle was parked.

This is a BEV. The vehicle has routine charging problems, especially with level 2 home AC charging. Parts have been replaced, but the issues persist.

The vehicle simply will not charge at any AC plug. At home I have a Type2-AC charger and the car vails to charge, at work I have access to a similar Type2-AC charge, that too fails to charge. The car will only charge at DC fast chargers and those are few and far between.

The malfunction I experienced involved the vehicle's electronic safety system, which caused the brake to apply suddenly and without my input. The service center was "UNABLE TO DUPLICATE" the specific fault during their inspection and found "NO CODES STORED," noting that the problem was intermittent and not verifiable by the technician. The car is, however, available for inspection.   My safety and the safety of others were put at extreme risk because the car suddenly and unexpectedly applied the brakes while I was driving in the middle of a street, creating an immediate and severe danger of being rear-ended by other traffic.   The problem has not been reproduced or confirmed by the dealer. The technician's notes explicitly state: "UNABLE TO DUPLICATE, NO CODES STORED," and the issue was recorded as "NO PROBLEM FOUND AT THIS TIME."   The vehicle has only been inspected by a technician at the authorized Polestar service center. There has been no inspection by police, insurance representatives, or any corporate representative from the manufacturer concerning this safety defect.   There were no warning lamps or messages immediately prior to the failure on November 13, 2025.

Date of Incident: [XXX] US Eastern Time Location: [XXX] Incident Type: Safety defect and vehicle malfunction due to Sudden Unintended Acceleration with multiple safety system failures On the date referenced above, while traveling at approximately 5 mph and preparing to park in a gravel parking lot, I removed my foot from the accelerator pedal to bring the vehicle to a complete stop using the normal deceleration process (with One-Pedal Mode disabled). Instead of the expected behavior, the vehicle: 1.Suddenly and violently accelerated without input 2.Drove straight into a parked vehicle at high speed, completely displacing it 3.Continued accelerating despite my attempts to control it 4.Required multiple brake applications before finally stopping 5.Traveled approximately 270 degrees across the parking lot while I desperately tried to avoid additional collisions 6.There were ~6 women that had been standing exactly where the incident happened only a few minutes before the accident, had I arrived earlier I could have hurt/killed these pedestrians Critical Safety System Failures During This Incident: •No pre-collision warnings or alerts activated •No collision avoidance sensors engaged •No automatic emergency braking deployed •No warning messages appeared on the vehicle display •No audible warning sounds of any kind •No air bag activation after my car rammed into the parked car This represents a catastrophic failure of multiple redundant safety systems that are fundamental to the Polestar 3's safety design. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)

After the car is backed up in reverse, the car is placed in drive however if at a stand still you pull down on the shift lever twice the car thinks it is in adaptive cruise control and as soon as you apply pressure to the accelerator pedal the car speeds up quickly without application of pressure on the accelerator. Multiple times I had to quickly apply the brake otherwise I would have crashed into my garage. I a person was in front of the car they could be injured. The company has not addressed this issue. Also the forward collision warning system activates spontaneously and incorrectly tightening the seat belts suddenly and with force.

On a curvy, 2-lane road, moderate traffic both ways, my vehicle performed unnecessary emergency braking for on oncoming vehicle while negotiating an “S” curve. There was no vehicle in my lane in front of me, the oncoming vehicle was squarely in its lane, I was in my lane, both of us had several cars following behind. But we had both just passed the apex of our respective curves and were approaching each other in the “middle” of the “S”. All warning lights flashed, my car applied emergency braking, and vehicle behind me took evasive action to the right shoulder in order to avoid a rear collision.

I have had multiple issues with my Polestar 3. Most notably, the vehicle lost all propulsion at highway speeds. My safety was heavily jeopardized as I had to merge across multiple lanes of traffic to reach the shoulder. On the day of the incident, the car's propulsion stopped working 4 separate times. The Polestar service center did nothing other than reset the software and tell me the issue was not repeatable. Additionally, the Polestar 3 has consistently electrical issues. I've had doors handles close on my fingers, the rear hatch close on my head, I had a period of time where the driver door did not open, and many basic elements like handsfree calling and bluetooth fail regularly. I also get repeated phantom front-end collision issues where the car automatically jams on the brakes when there is no actual concern for front-end collision. Lastly, like many Polestar 3 owners, I frequently have had multiple failures of the Level 2 Charging port. For the 2nd time, I am not able to charge at home or at any other Level 2 Charger. And frequent requests from Polestar to alleviate this go unheeded. I've had to spend a ton of time and money on Level 3 charging (like Electrify America) rather than the charger I paid to install at home. Overall, Polestar 3 has been an awful experience and the vehicle should not have been released. I'm effectively a beta tester for a substandard and unsafe vehicle.

We have owned this vehicle for about 4 months. During that time, it has displayed dozens of error messages about the vehicle's safety systems. Most commonly, it indicates that the safety systems are not available at all. There are also persistent warning lights about faults in the safety systems. Even when they are working, the ongoing warnings, issues and randomly occurring failures of these systems make them unreliable and less safe than not having the assist systems at all. Polestar service had the vehicle for over 7 weeks but still returned it to us with active safety system failure warnings.

Leased a new 2025 Polestar 3 and took delivery Dec 28, 2024. I expected some growing pains as it’s a new car model and relatively new brand, but have had to take it to the dealer and/or call support almost monthly. Most of the issues are resolved via resetting some system, but the major issue has been charging at home. Around March I had an issue where it wouldn’t charge at home and the car stayed with the dealer for 3 weeks (I had a loaner) to replace hardware. Now I’m seeing the same issue occurring which appears as: -Charger and car plug lights are correct (white on charger, green on car) -Car stays “Initializing” longer than normal -Either “Waiting” or “Error” appear onscreen and the car doesn’t charge I am stuck calling the dealer to solve this problem and in the meantime my car won’t charge (undriveable).

I was parking, lifted my foot off the accelerator to slow my car down, and instead my car unexpectedly went into high acceleration (note: not user error, I took my foot OFF the pedal). My car hit head-on into another car, then I steered the car sideways, and finally was able to get the car to stop by pumping the breaks several times.

three issues 1) media control are not built to steering wheel. The only way to change media is to use the dial. I have to move my hand away from steering wheel and move my eye to see the control. This is a safety hazard. 2) Polestar's driver monitoring software is too sensitive to report overwhelming false alarms. The alarm triggers when turning my head on lane change, moving my eye to change media etc. When there is way too many false alarm, the system become a safety hazard per se. 3) Steering wheel hand detection sometimes don't work even when I have my hand on it. Another distraction.

Vehicle suddenly lost power with no warning on a busy four-lane highway. Despite the obvious crash possibility, I was luckily able to move to the shoulder, but the entire electrical system soon went out. Emergency flashers quit working, making a rear-end collision more likely . It was a hot sunny day but the a/c and even the windows wouldn’t operate and we ran out of water before the tow truck arrived; heat stroke was a real possibility. The car was towed to a dealer who diagnosed the problem as failure of the High Low Control Module (HLCM). It seems to be the same type of failure for which NHTSA issued recall 24V940000, but this recall is not pending on my car. As of this writing, the car is still at a dealer undergoing repairs and should be available for inspection.

Air conditioner is being over worked because front grill shutters won’t open

The steering wheel has a piece of high-reflective chrome as does the entire front dashboard (and high reflective trim of the speaker on the top of the dash). When the sun is high in the sky, depending on the angle of car, the sun creates a BLINDING reflection in the driver's eyes. I almost got in to accident because of this. They need to find a solution to replace those high-reflective parts of the interior with something that is matte and non-reflective. It is very dangerous. I also reported this to Polestar.

I was driving my Polestar 3 2025 Performance into a gated garage. The car was on one pedal mode, I slowed down to come to a stop to open the gate. When the clicker for the garage door was clicked the car lunged forward and full speed rammed into the opening gate. Realizing the car is not stopping I pressed harder on the brakes, lifted my foot up and looked down to insure that I was pressing on the correct pedal and started pumping the brake pedal. None of these slowed down or stopped the car, which eventually hit a wall and stopped.

Software update latest on 06/16/25 caused airbag warning not recognizing seat belts being locked therefore airbag warning started. Loss of regenerative braking. Loss of emergency brake application. Constant alarm because doesn't recognize seat belts being locked.

After being away for a couple days the car has been completely unresponsive. I can not access the car and doors will not open. The car had to be towed and seems to be an issue with electrical powertrain such as 12V battery that is dying for some reason. This should not be the case as car was driven before hand and should have recharged the 12V battery. This is very concerning as this can leave you trapped and have to access to the car while traveling. Please investigate as I've seen many issues with this car.

Polestar has choosen to use highly reflective material around the cabin. Specifically the steering wheel has a large metal component that reflects overhead sunlight into the drivers eyes. Here is the issue as discussed on the Polestar Forum. [XXX] The design of the wheel reflects the light directly into the driver's eyes. Sunglasses are not a fix... This is a very dangerous design flaw. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)

During the first week of March, 2025, my Polestar 3 suffered a total AC charging failure, meaning I was no longer able to charge at home. March 7 I brought the vehicle to Dyer & Dyver Volvo in Atlanta, GA, and they confirmed that the AC charging inverter failed and would have to be replaced. This part took more than two weeks to receive, and I retrieved the vehicle April 1. This issue seemed resolved since then, however two evenings ago I arrived home to discover that once again the Polestar 3 would not charge, and displayed "Charge fault, contact workshop" on the driver display. The inability to charge the vehicle, and its now pattern of trouble, is certainly a safety issue. While my car was in the dealership I also had addressed a failure of the central locking system. All proximity keys refused to lock, or unlock, the vehicle. The only functional method was one of the card-keys supplied by Polestar. This safety issue completely erodes my trust that I will be able to gain access normally to my own vehicle, but may have to use my phone, or a backup card key (necessitating I carry two keys at all times). This issue has once reoccurred since retrieving the vehicle. Lastly, the driver door was not able to be opened from the exterior. The door handle, though extended and in the unlocked position, completely failed to function. The door had to be opened via the interior handle. I find this to be an extremely grave problem. It has not reoccurred.

- Blind spot warning detection failure (intermittent, unpredictable) - stops working during a drive and doesn't identify cars in blindspot despite working at the beginning of the drive without any notification of system failure. No way to reproduce this as it occurs randomly. Alternatively, it will sometimes light up when there is no car in the blindspot. - Lane keeping assist with cruise control: sometimes car will show that it is following a lane and stop following the lane without warning or notification, with the dash showing that the feature is still on.

I leased a 2025 Polestar 3 in February 2025. Within days, I began to experience serious discomfort. It started with a sensation of inner-ear pressure. It got worse the more time I spent in the vehicle and soon escalated to headaches, dizziness, and nausea. The vehicle is undrivable for me now, and, worse, the sensation of pressure hasn't completely gone away even though I haven't driven the vehicle in weeks. The problem seems to stem from the vehicle's active noise cancellation (ANC) system. I notified Polestar Corporate of the issue on approximately February 26, 2025. On March 13, 2025, a Polestar repair shop attempted to disable the ANC with a software update. After this didn't fix the issue, Polestar suggested on March 27, 2025, that I try driving with the windows closed. This also didn't resolve the issue, and Polestar since has failed to suggest another fix, articulate a plan, identify a timeline, or even let me speak to someone who can make decisions about the matter. Meanwhile, although my case may be extreme, I'm certainly not the only person who's experienced discomfort in the Polestar 3. Even though it's a new model, a forum post suggested other have had issues with the ANC. In addition, one of the Polestar customer service representatives with whom I spoke mentioned that her household has a Polestar 3 and that she avoids it because it bothers her as well.

Changing the gear to Drive while car is already in Drive is the normal way to put the car on cruise control at highway speeds. This should not be permitted when car is under a certain speed. However, it appears you can turn on cruise control when the car is at 0 mph. When car is already in Drive and at a stop (0 mph), shifting gear changer into drive again, and letting foot off brake and lightly tapping the gas pedals causes car to suddenly lurch forward in a highly disproportional manner to any light pressure applied to the gas pedal. Car then continues to increase speed from 0 mph at an alarming rate as if cruise control is on. This is extremely unsafe. One can accidentally shift the gear into drive more than once while at 0mph, and cause the car to unexpectedly lunge forward into someone or something. Moreover, the current gear is not clearly displayed at any time in a large enough font. The gear indicator is only displayed in tiny font on a small screen atop the steering column, and the gear indicator can be easily blocked by the spoke of the steering wheel when wheel is turned. At no time is the current gear indicator displayed on the larger head unit. Furthermore, there is no audible chime or indication that gear has been switched like in other cars. Without the chime, one can easily put the gear into to Drive twice, entering this dangerous condition where car can lurch forward as if cruise control is suddenly on.

Our vehicle will not charge using our home charging system, even though Polestar’s loaner vehicles charge without issue. We took delivery of the Polestar in early January, but it has spent nearly half the time since then at the service center.

Lane Keeping and Lane Departure: Lane Departure warnings cannot be disabled, but steering interventions also cannot be disabled, contrary to manual’s instructions and control panel button. With feature turned “off”, vehicle still intervenes and self-steers. Car has steered back toward potholes and bicyclists that I was trying to avoid. I could have destroyed a wheel in the 1st case or killed somebody in the second case.

- Vehicle displays are unresponsive and stay off or black, the display shows key indicators like speed & turn signals. Because the vehicle has no physical buttons you cannot control heat, cannot use backup cameras.

There are several issues with this vehicles, but here are the two most glaring safety issues: 1.) Emergency Braking System - on two occasions this was activated with no actual emergency. The first was simply turning left at an intersection. I was ~10ft away from the car in front of me and keeping the same speed or less than that car. The emergency braking was activated and the vehicle came to an almost full stop. The vehicle behind me nearly hit me. There was no reason for this to be activated and nearly caused an accident rather than prevented one. Check out the owner forums - this is happening frequently to multiple owners. [XXX] 2.) The software frequently shows malfunction in critical systems such as suspension and drivetrain which then will randomly disappear with a restart of the car or system. Again there are many stories of this in the owner forums. The most recent fault for us showed a suspension malfunction that then disappeared once it got to the dealer. These random phantom warnings are a safety hazard as drivers may become complacent and begin ignoring them. When a real malfunction happens it could be ignored to catastrophic results. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)