2023 Polestar 2 BST Edition 270 PVOTY Review: BINO

Polestar produced a one-off Goodwood Hillclimb special, internally nicknamed "the Beast," and then decided to make 270 more or less identical copies of that car, perhaps 47 of which will make it to the U.S. So this may have been the rarest vehicle competing in our annual performance vehicle smackdown. But perhaps as a reflection of the brand's stoic Scandinavian roots, we found the 2023 Polestar 2 BST Edition 270's mien to be anything but beastly.

Performance is undeniably amped up relative to the standard Polestar 2, with software tweaks boosting its dual-motor drivetrain's power and torque from 408 hp and 487 lb-ft to 476 horses and 502 lb-ft. The chassis is lowered an inch, the springs stiffened 20 percent, and damping is upgraded to a set of racing-spec Öhlins BST Edition two-way adjustable dampers with additional front reservoirs. Topping it all off is a set of 245/35-series 21-inch Pirelli P Zero (PZ4) HL tires developed especially for this car. This all earns the BST engineering excellence points in a package that still ranks as the most efficient vehicle here, with EPA ratings of 98/91/96 mpg-e.

More 2023 PVOTY: Winner | Finalists | Contenders

This setup generated a comparatively impressive figure-eight lap time of 24.2 seconds at 0.80 average g. That ranks it as our 11th best EV ever, behind mostly Teslas and Taycans. Most of the credit goes to those Pirelli tires and strong, fade-free Brembo brakes (with golden calipers!). But when the BST is generating its 0.96 g of max lateral grip, the driver is hanging on for dear life in seats with squishy bolsters designed for comfy cruising—not terrorizing a track. "If this thing had better seats, I could get even more out of it," features editor Scott Evans said. It's a problem compounded by the tall seating position.

We didn't fiddle with the manually adjustable Öhlins damper settings. Perhaps there's a setup that could bias a bit more bite toward the front and less in the rear, encouraging the car to rotate more eagerly in the corners, but as delivered it struck us as the Volvo of performance cars—safe, buttoned-down, taking no risks. And although the cornering and braking figures were strong, we wished the steering wheel and brake pedal shared a bit more info with the driver. 

Most of us drove the Polestar back to back with the similarly tall, also electric, vastly more fun-to-drive Kia EV6 GT. Evans longed to mix and match the Kia's power, torque, and joie de drift with the Polestar's vastly stickier Pirelli tires. But as things sat, we mostly agreed with deputy editor Alexander Stoklosa, who found the BST "sporty-ish, but nothing about the drive lingers with you—certainly not like the EV6 GT." Senior features editor Jonny Lieberman was less kind. "The BST 270 leaves me not only wanting more but also actively wondering, 'what's the point?'"

Driven by itself or alongside lesser 2s, the Polestar 2 BST Edition 270 no doubt impresses, but amid a field of the very hottest new vehicles across the price and performance spectrum, it feels slightly timid and introverted—all of which fatally undermined the car in our all-important performance of intended function criterion. A beastlier Polestar 2, no doubt. But it's not really a beast.