2025 Polestar 3 RWD First Drive – same package, more savings and efficiency
Polestar invited us up to the hills above Malibu for a drive of its new Single motor RWD Polestar 3, a lower-priced version of the brand’s all-electric SUV.
The RWD Polestar 3 is the new more efficient, longer-range version of the brand’s electric SUV with a lower starting price. It recently started production in the US, and is available now and even being shipped out for export to other markets.
Previous versions of the Polestar 3 were both dual motor – the 489hp Dual motor version and 517hp Dual motor Performance version.
The Single motor version deletes the front motor and uses only the rear motor, with 299hp (the number isn’t exactly half because total horsepower is also a function of the amount of power the battery pack can put out).
As a result of this, the Single motor version does 0-60 in 7.5 seconds, quite a bit slower than the 4.8 and 4.5 seconds of the other models.
It is however nearly 400lbs lighter after deletion of the front motor, and change to coil spring suspension, rather than air suspension on the upper models – and a lighter weight does have its own performance benefits.
These modifications make the Single motor model much more efficient, with 350 miles of range, compared to 315 miles for the Dual motor and 279 miles for the Performance version. All three models use the same hefty 111kWh battery, with the same 250kW peak DC charging rate, capable of charging from 10-80% in 30 minutes.
Polestar called the Single motor 3 “the most efficient Polestar yet” in its presentation to us, which didn’t sound right for an SUV – but it turns out, it does have the same ~350Wh/mi energy consumption rating as the smaller Polestar 2 and 4.
It also shaves nearly $6k off the price, starting at $67,500, compared to $73,400 for the Dual motor or $79,400 for the Performance model.
But how do those differences feel in the real world?
We had a couple hours with the Single motor car, and only a very short drive up and down PCH with the Dual motor Performance as a quick back-to-back comparison. We didn’t get a chance to charge the cars, or to do any sort of realistic range testing.
But we did definitely feel the huge difference in power between these models.
The Performance version predictably has pretty bonkers levels of power, and will really throw your head back when in performance mode.
The Single motor version is much more sedate by comparison. It still has snappy throttle response like one would expect of an electric car, but power was much weaker, especially at higher speeds.
As a result, merging performance was not as exceptional as in other EVs. One great thing about instant torque is that it makes it very easy to get exactly where you want to be, when you want to be there during merges or lane changes.
Regenerative braking also could be stronger. Less motor power also means less regen capacity, and while Polestar did retune regenerative braking for the Single motor version, it didn’t quite feel strong enough to me. I like very strong off-throttle regen, but found myself hitting the brake pedal much more than I’d have liked. Regen is adjustable, but even on the strongest level, I’d have liked more.
However, perhaps unexpectedly, I might have even liked the feel of the throttle more on the Single motor than the Performance. I’ll attempt to explain why.
One thing that Dual motor vehicles often do is put one of the two motors “asleep” when traveling at a consistent speed in order to increase efficiency. Then when power is called for, the car wakes up the second motor.
On the Performance model, if you have “performance” mode turned off, this wakeup takes a second or so, which means pressing the accelerator leads to a ramp-up effect in power delivery. The car’s software smooths this out, but it still feels a little strange.
If “performance” mode is turned on, both motors are always powered – so there’s no ramp-up effect, just unbridled power. But in that case, the car has so much power that it can feel a little jumpy on the throttle.
Meanwhile, with the single motor version, there is no sleeping of the motor, but since the motor is weaker, rough throttle inputs from the driver’s foot are mediated by the fact that there simply isn’t as much power there to jerk you around.
As a result, the Single motor ends up giving a more sedate, but more comfortable driving or riding experience.
On roads as twisty as the ones we drove on, I’ve had poor drive experiences in the past with co-drivers who are perhaps less accustomed to the instant torque of an EV and have a shaky throttle foot. But this time that wasn’t an issue at all – probably due partially to the EV experience of my co-driver, and also partially due to the Single motor’s more sedate character.
Now, the Single motor version’s coil suspension should stand to offer less ride comfort than the air suspension of the Dual motor, but we found no particular discomfort with the new coil suspension system.
We had a lot more time with the Single motor than the Dual, and our time with the Dual was on a smooth section of PCH rather than the curvy mountain roads we spent most of our time on, but I will say that both driving and riding in the Single motor was a plenty comfortable experience.
For comparison, I do not like the suspension in the Polestar 2, so either version of the Polestar 3 is a superior experience to that one.
Other aspects of the Polestar 3 Single motor are the same as the Dual motor version which we’ve reviewed before. For some quick takes on the rest:
- The seats are comfortable but I felt the cockpit was maybe a little crowded. I do like the Scandinavian-style sparseness of Tesla cockpits by comparison, and Tesla out-Scandinavian’d the Scandinavians here. If the Tesla cockpit is just a bit too sparse for you, then maybe this will provide the balance you want.
- The user interface is good and snappy, with occasional small hiccups (for example, it took maybe a second to load the page with mirror adjustments on it). I’ve experienced one really rough UI in a Polestar before, in a pre-production version of the 4, and this interface does not exhibit the difficulties of that one.
- We didn’t get a chance to test any driver assist features, other than lane departure warning, which had a fairly well-balanced intervention level. I do think it’s easy to get this wrong and make the interventions too light or too strong, and this car’s worked pretty well but was perhaps slightly lighter than I’d like.
- Can I just point out how much I love this front wing design feature? It reduces frontal area and improves efficiency, adds character, and leverages a benefit that EVs have (smaller engine compartment) to give the car a practical benefit (the Dodge Charger Daytona has a similar front wing, and I love it there too).
It’s not cheap though. The $6k in savings when compared to the Dual motor version are definitely appreciated, but $67,500 is still a steep starting price
That price is higher than the segment’s most popular vehicle, the Tesla Model Y (currently $60k for the Launch Edition model of the Juniper refresh, though once a base model is available, that will go down). Of course, many people wouldn’t buy a Tesla at any price right now, and Polestar’s new CEO sees this as an opportunity. In service of this, Polestar recently initiated a Tesla conquest offer, seeking to lure Tesla owners away (and even better, think of all the money you’ll save on bumper stickers).
Overall, the Polestar 3 Single motor offered a smooth and comfortable ride experience as driver or passenger. If you’re looking at the Polestar 3 but prioritize comfort, efficiency and savings, this new base model offers a compelling package for anyone who knows they won’t be hitting a track or drag strip anytime soon.
The Polestar 3 Single motor is available now for order and configuration over at Polestar’s website.
Charge your electric vehicle at home using rooftop solar panels. Find a reliable and competitively priced solar installer near you on EnergySage, for free. They have pre-vetted installers competing for your business, ensuring high-quality solutions and 20-30% savings. It’s free, with no sales calls until you choose an installer. Compare personalized solar quotes online and receive guidance from unbiased Energy Advisers. Get started here. – ad*
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
The new T-Roc has finally arrived, bringing some major upgrades. Volkswagen’s best-selling SUV will be available as a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) for the first time, but there’s more under the hood.
Volkswagen’s best-selling SUV goes hybrid: 2026 T-Roc
Since launching the T-Roc in 2017, VW’s crossover SUV has attracted over two million buyers. Nearly 300,000 drivers in Europe opted for the compact all-rounder last year alone.
Although it’s already Volkswagen’s best-selling SUV, the second-generation T-Roc is an improvement in nearly every way possible.
Volkswagen unveiled the new T-Roc for the first time on Wednesday, showcasing a sleek new design, a revamped interior, and a unique new hybrid powertrain.
The new model retains the classic T-Roc DNA, with its coupe-like silhouette, but Volkswagen has added several new elements to help it stand out from the crowd.
One of the first things you’ll notice is the updated front-end design, similar to VW’s other updated vehicles, featuring all-new LED headlights. The rear receives an added full-length LED light bar with an illuminated Volkswagen logo.
The interior has been “significantly improved,” according to VW. It pulls several features from the larger Tiguan and Tayron models, including driving controls and various profile options.
A newly added feature, which VW claims is also first in its class, is an optional head-up display (HUD) that displays your driving speed, navigation, and more directly on the windshield ahead of you.
The new T-Roc is slightly longer, gaining an additional 12 cm in length compared to its predecessor. At 4,373 mm in length, the 2026 T-Roc is about the size of the Toyota C-HR and Kia Niro. It also boasts 30% more rear cargo space than its predecessor, with up to 475 liters.
Following the updated Tiguan and Tayron, the new T-Roc is the third VW SUV based on its MQB Evo architecture. For the first time, the T-Roc will be equipped with advanced safety systems, including Park Assist Pro.
The new T-Roc will initially be available with two 1.5 L turbocharged mild hybrid powertrains, followed by two full hybrid drive systems. The HEV models will debut on Volkswagen’s advanced new hybrid platform, which will utilize a small electric motor and a gas engine, similar to what Toyota uses.
Pre-orders for the new T-Roc will open in Germany on August 28 with an official market launch scheduled for November. Prices start at 30,845 euros ($35,500) for the 1.5 eTSI base model.
Volkswagen is keeping most details of its new hybrid system secret for now. However, a VW engineer told Autocar it will offer “more than a few metres” of electric range.
CEO Thomas Schäfer added, “The platform can do it all. We can introduce it as we like.” The Golf, Passat, Tiguan, and Tayron are available with PHEVs or mild hybrids. Now, the T-Roc will be offered as an HEV. When will we see the all-electric models? Likely closer to the end of the decade, as Volkswagen plans to use hybrids as a bridge to EVs.
How do you feel about the new T-Roc? Do you like the updated style? I have to say, I’m a fan.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Environment
Google might lose its $26 billion search deals. Analysts say that could fuel its AI growth
Any day now, a federal judge is expected to issue a landmark ruling that could upend some of the most lucrative deals in Silicon Valley: Google’s default search contracts.
At stake is more than $26 billion a year, $20 billion of which goes to Apple. That’s nearly a quarter of Alphabet’s operating income.
For decades, the Apple-Google pact has helped determine who controls the internet, which is exactly why it’s now in the crosshairs.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled last year that Google held a monopoly in search and ads. He’s been weighing remedies since the final phase of the trial wrapped in May, with a separate case on Google’s ad business set to begin next month under a different judge.
While Google risks losing some search traffic and predictability, analysts say Apple could take a bigger financial hit. The impact will hinge on whether Apple lines up new deals and how broadly the ruling applies.
Jefferies analysts say the judge may block exclusive contracts but still allow some payments. Even so, Apple’s pre-tax profits could drop by as much as 7%.
Some economists and Wall Street analysts believe Google might come out ahead in the long run — freed from costly deals that no longer drive demand.
Searching for competition
Barclays analysts said in an August 5 note that if Google were to unwind the payments and contracts, it would still be “nearly impossible” for smaller peers to compete.
Megacap rival Microsoft has poured $100 billion into Bing and hasn’t been able to catch Google’s Chrome.
Apple Senior Vice President of Services Eddy Cue testified during the antitrust trial that no price Microsoft could offer would be enough to justify switching to Bing, because Google delivered stronger results and a better monetization engine.
“I don’t believe there’s a price in the world that Microsoft could offer us. They offered to give us Bing for free. They could give us the whole company,” Cue said.
Apple executives contend that it’s easy for users to switch search engines. Currently, Apple allows Americans to switch to Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, or Ecosia as their default search engine, but few do.
“I think their search engine is the best,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said about Google in 2018.
Economist Lones Smith, who modeled how people decide which search engine to use, described the phenomenon as a natural monopoly, where scale breeds quality, and quality reinforces scale.
“I don’t understand this deal it has with Apple, because if they didn’t pay Apple $20 billion, do they think that people would really be using another search engine? I don’t see that,” Smith told CNBC.
Smith likened Google to a utility: Breaking it up makes little economic sense.
“How do we get our water, electrical, and all that? We have a regulated monopoly. We don’t go and break it up,” he said. “We understand that there’s an efficient outcome for society, and we just don’t want the water company to be exploiting us.”
From a pure economics perspective, some on Wall Street would argue that the payments look like unnecessary insurance and that Google’s dominance is sticky enough without them.
Data suggests users opt for Google even when there is a choice.
In Europe, where regulators forced users to pick their own default after a European Commission ruling against Google, the company’s market share barely budged, with StatCounter data showing it still hovers around 90%.
Dan Niles, founder of Niles Investment Management, told CNBC that while Europe proves Google can thrive without these payments, the U.S. market moves faster, and what’s next matters more than what’s lost.
“Google to me, quite honestly, once this is done … next year, if they continue down this path, it could be one of the best-performing stocks out there,” Niles said.
Even Google’s proposed remedy points in that direction, allowing shorter default contracts and multiple providers instead of blanket exclusivity, while warning that the bigger risk comes from the DOJ’s push for search data-sharing.
The decision
Former FTC Chair William Kovacic told CNBC that the Justice Department is essentially betting that limiting Google’s exclusivity deals will open the door for new competitors to emerge.
“In part, it’s an act of faith,” he said, though past cases have shown that once barriers are removed, innovation often follows in unexpected ways.
Rebecca Allensworth, a scholar of antitrust and Big Tech, said the payments aren’t necessarily what keep people using Google and likened it to “innovation insurance,” freezing the ecosystem so that rivals don’t have a chance to compete.
“Google fought really, really hard to be able to make those payments,” said Allensworth, a law professor at Vanderbilt. “It makes the industry innovation-proof, in a way. Or at least, if there’s going to be innovation, it’s going to be by and for the benefit of Google.”
Kovacic warned that a Chrome divestiture — one of the more extreme remedies floated — might be more symbolic than effective, calling it “a flashy, shiny object” that wouldn’t do much to solve the issue.
“The big breakup has always been antitrust fascination,” he said. “But you can wonder whether that distracts you from solutions that have more to do with solving the competitive problem that you’ve identified today.”
The DOJ, concerned that Google could repeat its playbook with its artificial intelligence platform Gemini, is also pushing for restrictions on exclusive AI distribution deals — and even proposing data-sharing mandates.
These would force Google to give rivals access to anonymized data about what users search for and which results they click.
But Allensworth emphasized that it’s not a zero-sum game.
“You can have a very strong antitrust remedy … and then two, five, ten years later, that company is actually doing extremely well,” she said. “These are not existential threats to the company.”
AI opportunity
Since 2003 — before the iPhone or Chrome existed — Google’s default search deals with Apple have helped shape the internet. In 2017, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Cook were spotted sipping red wine at Tamarine, an upscale Vietnamese restaurant in Palo Alto, while their teams finalized one of the most lucrative arrangements in tech: keeping Google the default on Apple devices.
Eight years later, the same two CEOs are still at the helm — but the dynamics have changed. A new era of search is emerging, driven not by contracts, but by generative AI.
Wall Street analysts have considered the upside if Google stopped writing Apple a $20 billion check and redirected that money into AI and cloud, lifting profits while keeping its dominance intact.
“Let’s then assume that Google is limited from paying for search distribution deals, and others can leverage Google’s search tech stack, then what other properties can Google prioritize that may fall outside the scope of these cases?” mused Bernstein analysts in April. “Gemini.”
Niles said that with Gemini the company has a chance to shift from being seen as lagging in AI to potentially offering the strongest product on the market, a change already showing up in benchmark tests.
Pichai said during the trial that he spoke to Cook about adding Gemini to Apple devices but that integration hasn’t yet materialized.
In June 2024, Apple announced the integration of OpenAI’s ChatGPT at WWDC. Apple’s Cue testified that other AI services like Perplexity and Anthropic could also be added to Safari as options.
But neither can touch Google’s scale.
Perplexity reportedly handles 15 million queries per day, compared to Google’s 10 billion.
And Pichai said Google isn’t standing still, testifying in April that AI will “deeply transform” search. Whether that transformation cements Google’s dominance or finally opens the door to rivals is the real test now.
WATCH: Alphabet hits intraday record high on $10B Meta cloud deal, Apple Gemini talks
What seemed like a too-good-to-be-true opportunity in micromobility has turned into a cautionary tale. The Lightning Shared Scooter Company (LSSC) lured investors with promises of leasing scooters in Asia, offering hefty daily returns to Western investors – often average folks instead of seasoned investors. But now regulators and watchdogs warn it was all a well‑orchestrated scam, leaving victims robbed of millions.
The pitch: Easy money, powered by scooters?
From the start, LSSC presented itself as a legitimate shared-scooter rental company with high demand and even higher returns. Investors were told they’d lease scooters, watch them get deployed in bustling Asian cities, and collect reliable daily pay‑outs. The company sold a dream of passive income from a booming market of micromobility. But in reality, it was all smoke and mirrors.
In theory, as the e-scooters were rented and ridden, the investors would earn money from those scooters. In practice, fake revenue stacked up in the app but couldn’t actually be withdrawn. Making matters worse, the scam relied on its victims also roping in friends, family, or other potential “investors”, functioning much like a pyramid scheme.
To appear legitimate, the company circulated an official-looking SEC certificate, though NBC News reported that upon inspection, the document was riddled with typos, grammatical errors, and other flaws that any due diligence process should have caught.
Countless Americans fell for it, along with the company’s shiny marketing materials and supposed celebrity endorsements. According to the Better Business Bureau (BBB), LSSC’s victims often invested anywhere between $1,000 to a staggering $55,000. And this devastation wasn’t isolated; claims span at least 17 US states.
With mounting complaints piling up, the BBB has issued public warnings to anyone who might be approached by LSSC or similar schemes masquerading as shared-mobility ventures.
The scooter industry has been both glorified and maligned in recent years, from legitimate startups redefining urban transit to watchdogs cracking down on mismanagement and faulty batteries. What’s particularly concerning here is that LSSC weaponized well-known industry tropes: scooter popularity, micromobility returns, and a “global venture” to build credibility.
Ultimately, the Lightning Shared Scooter fiasco reads like a modern-day cautionary fable for investors: brand new names, global promises, and passive-income allure can be the perfect ingredients for fraud.
Micromobility is a bright, evolving industry, and one worth supporting, innovating, and investing in. But as this shadowy tale shows, even in our electric future, scams still require old-fashioned skepticism. So if you’re ever asked to “invest in scooters” – especially in far-off markets – pause, ask tough questions, and remember: not every opportunity is what it seems. And if a “business opportunity” requires signing up your friends and family, run for the hills. Or better yet, scoot there!
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment11 months agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024