A four-door with supercar power ought to behave like a thuggish lout. Polestar 5 Performance drives with the demure manners of a gentleman instead, and the hush in its cabin is blissful elegance dressed in aluminium.
Only the Performance version was on offer at the Tasmanian launch, and, it’s the only one Polestar has orders for so far. At $193,100 plus on-roads, Polestar 5 Performance is a four-door electric GT, and I came away from it far calmer than anything with supercar power has a right to leave you.
Our route took us from Hobart up to the Agrarian Kitchen at New Norfolk for light lunch. From there we took a delightfully circuitous route across to Sea Stacks at Bicheno on the east coast for the night. That masterpiece of elegance and understatement earned a story of its own. After an overnight Zappi, our steeds were ready to, well, steed.
Early next morning we headed off, at the crack of lunchtime, to Hobart, with an A220 ready to Qantaslink us into the heavens. Yes, with highway and curvy-wurvy bits along the way we gave it a good seeing to. It gave us the full Targa experience without the fear of death.
Above: Polestar 5 Australian Launch Review is Picturesque Tasmania
#Polestar5Performance, #Polestar, #EVReview, #AudiRS, #GayCarBoys
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ABOVE: 2026 Polestar 5
Polestar 5 Performance Goes to Lunch at the Asylum
Lunch was absolutely first class, built from sustainable produce grown in the garden right outside our verandaed perch. That garden is the old exercise yard of an asylum, which chef said was for for the criminally insane. I love a bit of drama in the morning. Like many such buildings, their story is carved into their fabric and to go from grim to gorgeous follows the ethos curated by Polestar 5 itself.
The restaurant is in a former ward of Willow Court, which opened in 1827 and ran as an asylum until 2001. We ate on the verandah benches adjacent to rooms crammed with jars of pickled produce glimpsed through the windows. There was something Nigella about the feel, but don’t tell chef I said that.
Polestar 5 Performance weighs about 2500kg, yet that little (big) minx feels far friskier than that on the road. The steering is super-responsive, and the MagneRide dampers make the roads utterly divine. Changes of direction are fabulously executed, though you can still feel the battery’s half-tonne heft when you give her a flick of the wrist.
The power is positively mountainous, yet the 3.2-second sprint to 100km/h feels more gentleman’s country Roller than a manic chav’s nicked-hot-hatch from “down the estate.” Take-offs are urgent without all that childish pantomime of fake engine noise or worse still, planet-destroying exploding dinosaurs.
The bonded aluminium structure is fiercely rigid, as it needs to be with this much power coursing through its soul. Only a decade ago, Holden’s creaking old pushrod 6.2-litre V8s made less than half the power while burning million-year-old poison. Think about it, is a throbber really worth killing life on planet Earth? It isn’t as if we have a spare (a line so good, I intend to use it again).
We averaged around 23kWh/100km over the trip, and we didn’t spare the horses.
A Silent Cabin with One Screen Too Many
The cabin of Polestar 5 Performance is stunningly quiet, so you can zen out on a playlist and enjoy a blissful blast.
That playlist comes through Bowers & Wilkins’ utterly transmogrifying speakers. It almost spiritually mind-melds every note directly into your body, Star Trek style.
Android 15 and the new screen shared with Polestar 3 transformed the Android experience from troublesome to terrific. The lack of warning bongs is worth celebrating with big blousy shrieks of joy. Pilot Assist’s automatic lane change was mostly OK, but the highway stints had nothing to overtake, so we only tried it to prove it worked. After all, Tassie is fab for driving but if both of its residents are out at the same time, there are ructions.
I spent an entire leg in the back while my co-driver Ben steered. I called him Benjamin, and came over all diva-ish, issuing calm barks about corners taken too brutishly. Boys will be boys, and although Ben was a wonderful co-driver, on his own turn in the back he got real work done, sorting out boy problems. Polestar 5 Performance is a four-seater, with a pair of individual rear seats and a console between them. Polestar bosses label it a 4+1, is that adrobs? You can raise the console to perch on a hump like a shag on a rock. No, nante, nix, ain’t nobody got time for that.
Polestar 5 Performance is tracked from cradle to grave on a blockchain. Nothing is forgotten, tracking goes right down to the consumables, wipers included. The leather is ethically sourced as a by-product of the meat industry, and eco-tanned sans poisonous chemicals. The leather-free trim is made from recycled material and plant-based oil, and recycled materials are used elsewhere in the car too. Everything you see, smell, feel, and touch is made with the planet in mind. Being classy doesn’t have to mean chugging down resources like we have an Earth MK II (there, I snuck it in again).
When it reaches the end of its life, most of it can be recycled.
My only real gripe with all this minimalism is Coco Chanel’s advice to look in the mirror and take one thing off can be taken a smidge too literally. Nahum Escobedo, Polestar’s head of exterior design, loves this Swedish minimalism lark. Alas, we still want, nay need, buttons for the mirrors and steering wheel adjustment, and for the climate. The zen aesthetic is fabulous in theory but Christ on a cracker, give us buttons. Carmakers are starting to realise that depending on a single fragile screen is folly. When it goes wrong, and it will, it may take out the voice control and other such handy functions right down with it.
A Halo Car with Geely Behind It
Anyone shopping for the statuesque Polestar 5 Performance will also be looking at Audi’s slinky RS e-tron GT, Jaguar’s in-your-face Type 01, and even Rolls-Royce’s Spectre, whose sales dropped. More like a plummet really.
Jaguar has bet the family jewels on the Type 01, the name of which was uncovered in May 2026. The four-door electric GT will start deliveries early in 2027, but if this card-toss turns into a deck of jokers, it’s debtor’s lodgings for the big cat.
Scott Maynard, Polestar’s managing director, was frightfully cagey about sales numbers, and quite right too. He said Polestar expects Polestar 5 to be a halo car selling in small numbers. Before Polestar he was sales director at Audi, then a care-taking managing director of Jaguar Land Rover, so he’s had a front-pew view of the cluster-intercourse engulfing the legacy brands.
Polestar’s saving grace is its owner, Geely. Chinese carmakers are taking a caning at home, but their sales abroad are obliterating the rest of the market like a flock of pheasant at Charlie Windsor’s weekender. CAAM figures for January to August 2026 show sales in China fell 22% to 13.162 million while exports rose 67% to 7.153 million.
Australia is in a unique position. Our EV prices, and our Chinese car prices, are way below the rest of the world except China itself. There are solid reasons Chinese EVs cost less to build. Polestar 5 Performance is made in China and owned by a Chinese brand, but it’s Swedish to its meatballs. There is a lot for them to be smug about, and Polestar in particular. This is a genuine tourer capable of leaping continents in as many bounds as 112kWh and 350kW charging will allow.
I’d be pretty smug too if I had this to swan about in.
Likes
- Silent cabin
- MagneRide ride and steering
- Bowers & Wilkins sound
Dislikes
- No mirror or climate buttons
- Everything through one screen
- Weight felt changing direction
Polestar 5 Performance
| Spec | Detail |
|---|---|
| Price | $193,100 plus on-roads |
| Power/torque | 650kW/1015Nm |
| 0-100km/h | 3.2 seconds |
| Top speed | 250km/h |
| Drive | Dual motor AWD |
| Battery | 112kWh 800V NMC |
| Range | 558km WLTP |
| Energy use | 21.2kWh/100km WLTP |
| DC charging | 350kW, 10-80% in 22 min |
| AC charging | 11kW, 0-100% in 11 hours |
| Kerb weight | 2500kg |
| Towing | 1800kg |
| Length/width/height | 5087/2015/1419mm |
| Wheelbase | 3054mm |
| Boot | 365L (1128L seats folded) |
| Frunk | 62L |
| Wheels | 22-inch forged, Michelin tyres |
| Suspension | MagneRide semi-active dampers |
| Warranty | 5 years, battery 8 years/160,000km |
Above: Polestar launches Polestar 5 and we stay at SeaStacks.
#SeaStacks #Bicheno #polestar5 #Tasmania #CoastalArchitecture #MidCenturyModern
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More Polestar Stories
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- 2027 Polestar 3 Updates are Transformative
Alan Zurvas is the founder and editor of Gay Car Boys, Australia's leading LGBTQI+ automotive publication. Before launching GCB in 2008, Alan's automotive writing was published in SameSame.com.au and the Star Observer. With over 16 years of hands-on car reviewing experience, Alan brings an honest, irreverent voice to every review — championing value and innovation over brand loyalty.
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