Tesla Model 3 v Polestar 2 - which is best?

this is the new entry-level single motor version of the pulse r2 if you ask me it's the pick the polstar 2 range and this is the entry-level single motor version of the tesla model 3 which is also the pick of the tesla model 3 range but which of these two cars is best well to find out i'm going to compare their energy usage their performance their exteriors their interiors their practicality and what they like to drive it's going to be a tough call very very close now if you enjoy these kind of videos please make sure you subscribe to this channel and hit the bell icon to turn your notifications on that way you won't miss a single upload anyhow i'm matt watson and you're watching car wag buying a new car then head to car wow and my team will help you find your next car at a fair price car wow your one stop car buying comparison site let's start this review by comparing these cars performance they're both single motors however the motor in the polestar is at the front driving the front wheels the motor in the tesla is at the back driving the rear wheels the motor in the polestar has up to 231 horsepower and 330 newton meters of torque the one in the tesla has 296 horsepower and 376 newton meters of torque what does that do for the performance let's launch them this pole starts supposed to do not 60 in 7.2 seconds but let's see what it will really do i've got my specialist timing gear here it's going to launch it very steady smooth and dramatic take off but what will the time be 7.29 it's all right it's not amazing but it's fairly nippy it's like hortacy my older hot hatchery like ford fiesta hot hatchy kind of quick this tesla's supposed to do naughty 60 in 5.3 seconds but what will it really do let's do it let's find out the truth smooth take off no slip just building the power nicely they only got a smashed it 5.2 seconds it didn't feel that brutal it was smooth taking off but it just keeps on accelerating it's not bad for like the entry-level car is it you know i think that's quicker than like porsche 911 996. now let's compare these cars battery sizes their range and they're charging so one of the great things about the tesla model 3 is that you have access to the tesla supercharger network which obviously other electric cars can't use at the moment also the car's sat-nav is really good at plotting your journey to stop at the right charge at the right time so it's just dead easy if you're a beginner ev user this makes your life much easier terms of the battery size it's a 50 kilowatt hour battery now it will charge at a rate of up to 170 kilowatts and if you charge it at a 150 kilowatt charger it will go from 10 to 80 full in just 23 minutes now if you're charging it at home on a wall box charger it'll do it overnight simple now we come to the pulse r2 and things are a little bit more confusing because there's two battery sizes so you can get a smaller battery size which has a usable capacity of 61 kilowatt hours now with that battery it can charge at a maximum rate of 116 kilowatts and if you find a rapid charger it can go from 10 to 80 for in 33 minutes then there's the bigger battery so that has a capacity of 75 kilowatt hours it can charge at a rate of 155 kilowatts also you get more range obviously at the bigger battery it can do 335 miles on a full charge the smaller battery however it can only do 273 miles on a full charge and compare that to the tesla with a claimed range of 278 miles now that does make a difference but then so does the price so the pole star starts slightly cheaper than the tesla it's at 40 000 pounds tesla 41 000 pounds that's for the smaller battery for this pole star however if you're looking at a leasing deal through car wow this is 395 per month compared to 382 for the tesla now if you want to check out different leasing deals and prices of electric cars make sure you're getting the best deal click on the pop-out banner up there to get a car wow alternatively at a later date you can simply google help me car wow my team and i'll help you choose the right car for you and get it for a fair price from either one of our trusted dealers or one of our leasing partners now let's compare these cars designs so it's quite simple this the pole star 2 is better looking it's fact don't disagree with me see the tesla looks a little bit like a fish i know some people might complain that this seems a little bit high off the ground but i quite like that it's just cooler if you disagree let me know in the comments and i'll downvote your comment i'm going to compare the brakes on these cars now so the pulsed r2 has 345 millimeter discs at the front and 340s at the rear tesla on its website doesn't disclose anything about the brakes so i've had to go on forums and they say 320 millimeter disc up front and 335 millimeter at the back i do know about the weights though so the pole star for the smaller battery comes in at 1940 kilos this one here which has the bigger battery it's pretty much two tons tesla much lighter 1700 kilos how does all that affect the braking performance let's do it now i'm gonna do a brake test on this tesla what distance would it take you to stop from 60 miles an hour let's find out now [Applause] a distance of 31 meters which is good okay let's see if this pole star can stop in a shorter distance than the tesla breaking time now felt good to me what did we get oh it was exactly the same 31 meters exactly the same apart from this guy i got a massive pull from the seat belt as it thought i was going to crash and die didn't they take one me it's good now a lot of you are probably wondering matt you talked about the range earlier but that was the claimed range from the manufacturers what will these cars do in the real world well what i'm going to do now is drive both of them in town on a motorway and on twisty road and i'm going to see what their average energy consumption is and then work out what their real world ranges will be at the end of this video so let's get on with it now when you compare the pole star at twisty road to the tesla if you're into a sporty drive you're gonna want the tesla without a doubt this just feels like a normal car you know it's adequate it doesn't roll over or lean too much in the bends it feels short-footed but it's in no way fun part of the reason is the steering it's just like it's not even connected to the wheels point is the car where you want it to go but you don't really get anything from the road through your hands so there's that element of communication with the car just not there another thing is being front-wheel drive it doesn't push you through the turns it pulls you through them and it's just not a sporty feeling you're also sitting slightly higher which once again reduces the sporty feeling it does an adequate job most people would be happy with it and the motor you know once you're traveling it's got enough punch and torque to just pick up nicely so in that respect it's good but it's just like a normal everyday car really on twisty road you're not going to go all let's go for a drive in the pole star 2 that'll be fine you're just going to drive it from a to b jumping out the pole start into the tesla this immediately feels more sporty you sit lower down closer to the road so you feel more connected to it also got quite a low dash and the ford visibility is great another thing is the motor just has a bit more power and punch and when you combine that with the fact that this weighs in at 1700 kilos which means it's about 300 kilos lighter than that pole star it's just more responsive to your accelerator and to your steering inputs because the car is more agile it feels genuinely sporty to drive part of that is helped by the fact it's rear-wheel drive so you're pushed out of the corners rather than pull through them and when you accelerate out of a bend you can feel the rear squat and the drive being laid down a little bit of a wiggle from the tail it really is generally good fun this to drive it really is anyone who says electric cars are boring should drive a tesla model three i like it it's fun and i like fun well that's a ridiculous thing to say really isn't it because like who doesn't like fun cake okay cake double hate before we go any further let's compare these cars interior designs so the tesla's is super minimalistic that's because there's no buttons because everything is controlled through this screen it's huge screen brilliant definition it's responsive as well however it can be a fast sometimes trying to prod away at these icons when you're driving hmm storage is all right though plenty of it and you got charging points there it's pretty decent and i quite like this white interior but i might be in the minority the pole star feels more like a normal car here on the inside and i actually prefer the design of the dash now once again it's very minimalistic and most things are controlled through this screen it's pretty decent to use as well because it's basically just running android auto quite simple why do you prefer the tesla for sure is the quality just feels a little bit better made however in car storage isn't quite as good though to be fair it's still fairly decent there's enough space for all your bits and pieces now though let's do a bit more driving this pole star is pretty nice to drive in town you've got turning circle of 11.5 meters which is good steering's nice and light as well got in its lightest setting and i've got the drive mode in one pedal drive so even if you're approaching something like zebra crossing you need to stop to let someone across no one really there i actually can see a few ghosts anyway look you can stop i just lift off the accelerator and i didn't even touch the brakes and it just brought the car to a stop it blends the regenerative braking for the motor and the battery with the actual brakes over bumps it's reasonably comfy this car has a slightly firmish edge but not in like an overly firm and comfy way more just a reassured not wallowy silly soft and squidgy kind of way which is how i actually like it no one really likes soft and squidgy now i've jumped into the tesla the first thing i noticed is the one pedal drive slows down nicely but it's not quite as definite the way it stops so this is still a little bit of kind of roll at the very end i'm never sure whether you're going to go and accidentally knock over some old lady that's not true it's fine just ever so slightly well i can't fault those as suspension very comfy car over bunch i think it's slightly better than the pulse star the way it deals with bumps what i do notice though is that when you go over bumps you hear some noise a little bit of like the body flexing or panels moving ever so slightly visibility wise you're sitting lower so you don't get such a good view over but you do get an amazing view and i'm not sure which i prefer the higher driving position or the more panoramic view you're getting this tesla it's a tough one steering-wise let's go comfort nice and light steering brakes as well they're quite progressive sometimes electric cars can have a brook breaks the pulsars are fine i think these probably are even better judged finally though we need to test out the turning circle so here's the mini roundabout can i make it round in one go without humiliating myself and tesla in the process let's find out turning circle on this is slightly more than the pulse i 11.8 meters so 30 meters no what am i talking about 30 centimeters difference look yeah it's gonna be fine it's hard to fall one thing i really like about the tesla model 3 is that in the back seats it feels really super airy especially with the white interior trim got big rear windows there's enough space you've got that glass roof which is standard by the way when it comes to fitting a baby seat it's fairly easy you do have to stoop down a little bit to get it in and it's a bit hard to get to the ice fix anchor points but you can still fit a big rear facing seat in the back no problem without having to move that front seat forward it is slightly easier to fit a baby seat in the back of the polestar 2 it does help that the isofix anchor points are easier to get to and you don't have to bend down too much to actually get the seat in also i like the fact that there's cutouts in the floor so your feet are a bit lower than in the tesla so you're not sitting quite so much like that but other than that i prefer the back seats of the tesla for instance there is more headroom in the tesla the seats themselves feel a bit more comfortable the windows are bigger and the glass roof in this is an optional extra in fact the tesla is pretty much fully loaded and there are quite a few things you might want to add to this car on the tesla you get surround view cameras as standard not on this anyway let's continue with a bit more driving this pole starts fairly comfy to drive on the motorway notice a bit of wind noise a bit tire noise but they're not too intrusive seats are comfy i like the fact that you can sit up a bit higher than in the tesla which gives you a little bit of a view over vehicles ahead of you one thing that i don't like so much automatic cruise control you don't get it standard it's part of a 3 000 option pack but you still have the button for the radar assist which will keep you a safe distance from the car in front so you know that you haven't got this kit selected on your car you know it should come as standard performance for overtaking adequate it's not stellar but it's all you really need you know i'm fine with this car more than happily do lots of miles in it now let's see what this tesla 103 is like to drive on the motorway and yeah it's very very good it gets double glazing on these windows that helps reduce wind noise though to be fair it's very very similar to the pulse r2 there's not much between them the only thing that i will say is that when you go over a big bump in this you get more noise from the suspension it sort of goes one way this car is better than the polestar though is that as standard you get automated cruise control with lane keeping assist so it does everything for you you still have to keep your wits about you a little bit you know it's not completely infallible though it does most of the hard work so keeping you in lane and accelerating and braking you just got to monitor it it's great in standard and it's a real show that it's not on the pole star let's continue with practicality by looking at these cars boots so they both have a boot at the back and a smaller one at the front combined the tesla has 425 liters of storage capacity this has 440 liters this has a slightly smaller front boot than the tesla but it has a bigger rear boot also has a hatchback tailgate which is more practical than the saloon boot on this so yeah this is just a bit more practical i think last thing to do check these cars real world range so over my 16 mile route this tesla model 3 was doing 213 watt hours per mile when i do the math that works out to 4.69 miles per kilowatt hour and when you multiply that up by the battery capacity of 50 miles you end up with 234 miles of real world range from this car remember it's supposed to do 278 so kind of close now the pole star over the same journey was using 31.2 kilowatt hours per 100 miles which works out to 3.2 miles per kilowatt hour this is a larger battery car which has a usable capacity of 75 kilowatts work that out it comes to a real world range of 240 miles so only six miles more than that tesla and this is the bigger battery which is three thousand pounds more expensive than the entry-level car and remember this car has a claim range of 335 miles so its energy usage just isn't as good as the tesla's so then what's my final verdict well i really like this single motor version of the pulse r2 but i do still prefer the tesla model 3. it's just a bit nicer to drive you've got access to the tesla supercharger network which makes it easy to live with and the best bit is it's cheaper to buy and that's why it wins this test i hope you enjoyed the video if you did please give it a like let me know some other videos likes in the comments below click on those windows there for some more videos and if you click on that box there you can go to my version of my only fans page

Channel: carwow

Views: 390,144

Rating: 4.9100213 out of 5

Keywords: carwow, mat watson, car review, car review 2021, new car review, polestar, polestar 2, polestar 2 single-motor, single-motor polestar 2, polestar 2 review, polestar 2 single-motor review, polestar 2 2021, polestar 2 2022, polestar review, best electric car, best ev, best electric car 2021, best electric car 2022, tesla, tesla model 3, model 3, tesla model 3 standard-range plus, tesla model 3 standard range plus review, entry-level tesla, entry-level tesla model 3

Id: ocL2pzbzH7w

Length: 15min 30sec (930 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 15 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/nightman008]

I really love these side-by-side comparisons. In case anyone doesn’t have the time to watch the entire video, here’s basically what they said:

For the base Polestar 2 vs. base Model 3

Polestar had 7.3s 0-60
Model 3 had 5.2s 0-60

Polestar had 231 horsepower
Model 3 had 296 horsepower

Polestar had 116 kW max charging speed
Model 3 had 170 kW max charging speed

Polestar had 31m stopping distance from 60mph
Model 3 had 31m stopping distance from 60mph

Polestar had 440L cargo space combined
Model 3 had 425L cargo space combined

Polestar had 3.2 miles/kWh
Model 3 had 4.7 miles/kWh

Polestar had 72% of advertised range
Model 3 had 84% of advertised range

[u/ScoobsCandy]

Interesting test. Surprisingly the Polestar is 30% less efficient than the Tesla even with a bigger battery and price - gotta be that boxy shape? Also the real-world Polestar range of 240 miles is a long way from their claimed 335. Tesla manages 234 against a claim of 278.

[u/edum18]

here one is available, the other is not, so..