According to InsideEVs, Polestar has decided to conduct a complete recall of the Polestar 2 following the discovery of a mysterious issue that’s causing the EV to simply shut down in various situations – even while it’s driving!
Operating on the Android Automotive OS and hailing a key-less driving experience (the vehicle connects directly to your phone), the Polestar 2 is the latest electric vehicle developed by Polestar, a subsidiary of Volvo Cars.
Polestar had delivered 2,200 of these cars by the time news of the units breaking down under mysterious circumstances broke. The issue in question causes the car to simply stop working at a seemingly random moment, with the driver sometimes getting an error message and sometimes seeing nothing at all.
The vehicle cannot be rebooted no matter what the driver tries, and it has to be towed to a workshop for repairs. In addition, repairs take excruciatingly long, with some owners waiting on their cars for over a month. Dager Industri, a Swedish publication, is now reporting that Polestar has decided to recall all 2,200 units delivered so far.
Three Swedish owners of the Polestar 2 have experienced this problem while they were on the road. Thankfully, there have been no accidents or injuries reported so far. Brent Ellis, a member of Polestar’s PR department, told Dager Industri that brakes, steering, and other manual systems still continue to work even after the vehicle shuts down. The lack of injuries and accidents can probably be attributed to this fortunate caveat.
Polestar currently considers this issue to be a “very safety-critical” software glitch. However, there has been a report of the problem related to a hardware safety device linking the high voltage and the rear engine.
While we’ll have to wait on official word from Polestar to find out what the actual underlying problem is, it’s a shame to see a more than decent EV be shipped to consumers with such a fatal flaw.
