Some cars' characters are defined by a single component, for better or for worse.
Think of the Renault Clio 182 Trophy's remote-reservoir dampers; the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N's simulated gears; and the original Smart Fortwo's automated manual gearbox. The Polestar 3 was just such a car, with its torque-vectoring rear clutch pack that could chuck all of the drive from the rear motor to either wheel. It gave this big and heavy EV remarkable agility and a sense of playfulness.
You'll note I'm using the past tense here, because the 3 has just had a big but rather confusing update, as part of which that clever differential has found itself out of a job. The update isn't really a facelift, because other than some new wheel designs and paint options, the 3 looks the same; the changes all take place under the skin. The headline facts here are a switch from 400V to 800V, which has boosted the maximum charging speed from 250kW to 350kW.
At the same time, the batteries have got smaller. Why? We didn't really get an answer, but on the Dual Motor and Performance models the difference isn't very significant: it goes from 107kWh to 103kWh (usable).
The Rear Motor, however, goes from the same 107kWh to just 90kWh – presumably to reposition it more clearly as the entry-level 3. The dual-motor versions actually gain a couple of miles of range (395 for the Dual Motor, 368 for the Performance), in each case because this is also an efficiency upgrade.
This is where the torque splitter comes in – and out. It was originally called into being because the 3 used permanent magnet synchronous motors on both axles. You only need one at a steady cruise, and a PMSM can sap power when it's idle, so the engineers specified a disconnect clutch. And if you're going to have a clutch pack, you might as well upgrade it to let it do something exciting, like vector torque, right? It's a nice way of giving one component a dual purpose.
For the 2026 update, the rear motor becomes more efficient and the front one is changed to an asynchronous unit, which is happy to idle at a cruise. That meant the rear torque splitter was no longer needed as a disconnect clutch, and to have it there just for the dynamics was seen as something of an extravagance, so it had to go. By way of compensation, the front suspension has been made softer to give the car more alacrity on turn-in, and the electric power steering has been recalibrated. Despite the loss of that key bit of technology, Polestar's engineers claim the updated 3 drives even better than before.
I have driven the new car in all three specs: Rear Motor, Dual Motor and Performance. No matter which one you go for, there's no doubt about it, the Polestar 3 remains one of the sharpest, most dynamic big electric cars you can buy. The grip, steering precision and turn-in response are all phenomenal, particularly for something that weighs 2.5 tonnes. The Performance is a notch above the others, although I'm not sure you could tell definitively without driving them back to back.
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