Polestar 3 confirmed for carsales Melbourne EV Show

UPDATED 25/08/2023 11:30am: Polestar confirmed overnight that its chief designer Max Missoni now won't attend the Polestar 3's local debut at the carsales Melbourne EV Show in September, but will attend Polestar 3 functions in Sydney.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE PUBLISHED 25/08/2023 6:00am: The tech-laden all-new 2024 Polestar 3 premium SUV will make its Australian debut at the carsales Melbourne EV Show in September, with the Swedish-Chinese EV specialist’s global design chief Max Missoni flying in for the event.

The unveil will kick off a national promotional tour ahead of first local Polestar 3 deliveries to customers late in the second quarter of 2024.

Three examples of the Polestar 3 are being imported to Australia by the end of September for static display. They will be indicative of local equipment spec and trim.

One will be located at the Polestar Space in Melbourne’s Chadstone shopping centre, another will be stationed at the brand’s site in the Sydney suburb of Alexandria, while the third will have roving duties including the inaugural carsales Melbourne EV Show on September 22-24.

Polestar has received more than 7000 expressions of interest for its BMW iX fighter since its global reveal in October 2022.

It will be sold here in two dual-motor all-wheel drive guises with pricing starting at $132,900 plus on-road costs.

It is one of two all-new models the brand will add next year in Australia to join the recently updated Polestar 2, along with the coupe-SUV Polestar 4 that arrives late in quarter three.

The rollout of the two models is so close because Polestar 3 production has been delayed because of software issues. The Polestar 4 is on time.

“Max Missoni will be at events in Melbourne and Sydney,” confirmed Polestar Automotive Australia managing director Samantha Johnson.

“It will be great for him to be able to explain the design and how they brought that about. Hearing straight from him how they brought about the exterior and the interior will be very interesting.”

Missoni, originally from Austria, has been in charge of Polestar design since 2018. He was at Polestar shareholder Volvo for eight years before that. His career started at Volkswagen in 2002.

Until now, Polestar Australia had been showing off the Polestar 3 to customers via an augmented reality display at its experience centres that compares it to the Polestar 2.

“But now people will have the opportunity to see the size of the car, see the interior, see the interior and the extra size in the back seat,” said Johnson.

“They will go inside and be able to see the touch-screen, which is a lot bigger than the Polestar 2.

“The level of interest is very high, so anyone who has been waiting for the Polestar 3 is going to come into Chadstone, they’re going to come into the events.

“It’s been spoken about for a long time. SUVs are very popular and everyone is wanting to see what this next car looks like.”

The Polestar 3 is the twin-under-the-skin of the Volvo EX90. Both are based on Volvo’s scalable second-generation SPA2 architecture and have the same software issues because their systems are shared.

The Polestar 3 range will start with the 360kW/840Nm Long Range Dual Motor, while the Dual Motor with Performance Pack adds 20kW and 70Nm and costs $141,900 plus on-road costs.

The Polestar 3 will be available with Lidar (light detection and ranging) as part of a Pilot Pack from the third quarter of 2024. Lidar uses light in the form of pulsed laser to measure range. It will be one of the first new vehicles sold in Australia that uses Lidar sensors.