The EV
Chronicles

In a post back in February, I explored what I knew after 2 months of winter driving data collection to give an early assessment and analysis of how much energy my Polestar 3 used for for HVAC functions. You can find that post HERE. At that time, I only had a couple of months worth of data and had almost no data in mild (what I call Spring in my data) and zero data in hot weather. It is now mid-July 2026 and I have now collected data on roughly 270 different drives, with 40

Just over 2 weeks ago, we got the announcement that Polestar was not able to get approval to continue its sales in 2027. For those not following, this is due to (I admit, I lifted the following from a Google Search Result) the U.S. Department of Commerce banning Polestar from selling new vehicles in the United States starting with the 2027 model year. The restriction is a result of the "Connected Vehicle Rule," which prohibits the sale of connected vehicles with hardware and

April 10th (2026) marks one year since I picked up my 2026 Polestar 3 with 5 miles on the Odometer. Based on the past year, I would definitely buy another Polestar and/or recommend a Polestar 3 to anyone who is looking for a new luxury SUV EV. To be totally honest, since Polestar is essentially the performance line of the Volvo brand (not 100% accurate, but the best way I can describe their relationship), I am actually considering Volvo branded vehicles as possibilities for

This is a long one, so buckle up fellow EV nerds. If you own an EV, you have most likely been asked this question, probably many, many times: "How much Range does your EV lose in the winter?" So, if you are just curious or your yourself are considering buying an EV in the future, you have come to the right place! I hope to enlighten you with this blog to expand your basic understanding of thermodynamics and how to apply that knowledge to understand how EVs work in winter we

I have a 2025 Polestar 3 and have been running tons of winter tests the past two months. I just wanted to write this short rant. The Polestar's navigation calculations for arrival SOC have generally been pretty good, often pessimistic, arriving with a couple percent more than the estimated at departure. But this winter, I have experienced a handful of instances where the estimates weren't just a little optimistic, they were downright horrible, double digit SOC horrible. I

I just returned from a weekend roadtrip from my home in SE PA to Warsaw, Indiana and back. This is the first time I have road-tripped using mostly Non-Tesla chargers. Other than the cost/kWh being 25-50% more than the Tesla chargers (particularly with a monthly subscription), all of the chargers we stopped at were great. I think we ran into only 2 Chargers that weren't working and I had one session on my final leg home where I seemed to be having a communications issue bet

The reason that I am writing this post is that I discovered over the past week, that my Polestar 3 doesn't ALWAYS pull power via the EVSE for preconditioning when plugged in. I always assumed that all EVs, in order to minimize unnecessary charging cycles of the battery, would pull power from the EVSE when plugged in no matter what. Let's get into the details of how I discovered that this is actually NOT how a Polestar 3 is programmed. I know, before continuing, some of you

Almost two years ago, I wrote a blog about the Truth and Lies about EVs and Cold Weather ( https://marcepochet.wixsite.com/the-ev-chronicles/post/tesla-chronicles-46-truth-and-lies-about-evs-and-cold-weather ). Two years later, and sadly, not much has changed. In my opinion, that was one of my best, most details blogs about driving an EV in the winter, so I suggest reading it (again if you read it the first time) if you want to know more about all the factors that go into r

This analysis of the Polestar 3 SW is based on SW Version 1.4.12 as of late November 2025. I started to write this blog MONTHS ago and could just never get it finished. I almost just decided to delete it completely. Honestly, since I started to write this, there have been a few YouTube videos on this topic that probably do a much better job at giving you an overview of the Polestar 3 SW than I can do here in text form. So maybe the most useful aspect of this post is that

For those of us that travel frequently in our electric vehicles (EVs), you might be able to relate to the following statement: Traveling in an EV (in 2025) from point to point is pretty easy, but living with an EV once you get there can be quite challenging. For many EV owners, when at home, living with an EV is amazing, because many of us have access to the L2 charger we have installed in our homes. But living with an EV at just about any other location is so dependent on t