Which parts fail
Components named in complaints (automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise, lane keeping, backup camera).
Owner reports
Selected complaints filed with NHTSA by 2025 Polestar 3 owners, lightly cleaned up (personal details are redacted by NHTSA).
I was driving my Polestar 3 2025 Performance into a gated garage. The car was on one pedal mode, I slowed down to come to a stop to open the gate. When the clicker for the garage door was clicked the car lunged forward and full speed rammed into the opening gate. Realizing the car is not stopping I pressed harder on the brakes, lifted my foot up and looked down to insure that I was pressing on the correct pedal and started pumping the brake pedal. None of these slowed down or stopped the car, which eventually hit a wall and stopped.
There are several issues with this vehicles, but here are the two most glaring safety issues: 1.) Emergency Braking System - on two occasions this was activated with no actual emergency. The first was simply turning left at an intersection. I was ~10ft away from the car in front of me and keeping the same speed or less than that car. The emergency braking was activated and the vehicle came to an almost full stop. The vehicle behind me nearly hit me. There was no reason for this to be activated and nearly caused an accident rather than prevented one. Check out the owner forums - this is happening frequently to multiple owners. [redacted] 2.) The software frequently shows malfunction in critical systems such as suspension and drivetrain which then will randomly disappear with a restart of the car or system. Again there are many stories of this in the owner forums. …
Changing the gear to Drive while car is already in Drive is the normal way to put the car on cruise control at highway speeds. This should not be permitted when car is under a certain speed. However, it appears you can turn on cruise control when the car is at 0 mph. When car is already in Drive and at a stop (0 mph), shifting gear changer into drive again, and letting foot off brake and lightly tapping the gas pedals causes car to suddenly lurch forward in a highly disproportional manner to any light pressure applied to the gas pedal. Car then continues to increase speed from 0 mph at an alarming rate as if cruise control is on. This is extremely unsafe. One can accidentally shift the gear into drive more than once while at 0mph, and cause the car to unexpectedly lunge forward into someone or something. …
Date of Incident: [redacted] US Eastern Time Location: [redacted] Incident Type: Safety defect and vehicle malfunction due to Sudden Unintended Acceleration with multiple safety system failures On the date referenced above, while traveling at approximately 5 mph and preparing to park in a gravel parking lot, I removed my foot from the accelerator pedal to bring the vehicle to a complete stop using the normal deceleration process (with One-Pedal Mode disabled). Instead of the expected behavior, the vehicle: 1.Suddenly and violently accelerated without input 2.Drove straight into a parked vehicle at high speed, completely displacing it 3.Continued accelerating despite my attempts to control it 4.Required multiple brake applications before finally stopping 5.Traveled approximately 270 degrees across the parking lot while I desperately tried to avoid additional collisions 6.There were ~6 …
The malfunction I experienced involved the vehicle's electronic safety system, which caused the brake to apply suddenly and without my input. The service center was "UNABLE TO DUPLICATE" the specific fault during their inspection and found "NO CODES STORED," noting that the problem was intermittent and not verifiable by the technician. The car is, however, available for inspection. My safety and the safety of others were put at extreme risk because the car suddenly and unexpectedly applied the brakes while I was driving in the middle of a street, creating an immediate and severe danger of being rear-ended by other traffic. The problem has not been reproduced or confirmed by the dealer. …
I have had multiple issues with my Polestar 3. Most notably, the vehicle lost all propulsion at highway speeds. My safety was heavily jeopardized as I had to merge across multiple lanes of traffic to reach the shoulder. On the day of the incident, the car's propulsion stopped working 4 separate times. The Polestar service center did nothing other than reset the software and tell me the issue was not repeatable. Additionally, the Polestar 3 has consistently electrical issues. I've had doors handles close on my fingers, the rear hatch close on my head, I had a period of time where the driver door did not open, and many basic elements like handsfree calling and bluetooth fail regularly. I also get repeated phantom front-end collision issues where the car automatically jams on the brakes when there is no actual concern for front-end collision. …
Activation and persistence of the rearview camera. This situation occurs when selecting reverse, drive and then reverse again in short order (i.e. parallel parking, maneuvering to get into our garage with a narrow driveway and tight turn). When I initially select Reverse, the center display shows both the 360 view and the reverse camera - perfect. When I select Drive to move forward a couple of feet and realign the car, the display switches to show just the 360 view - makes sense. When I then put it back into Reverse to continue parking, the rear view camera does not come back on and only the 360 view is visible. Based on my reading of the regulations, if the car is in reverse, the rear view camera should be active and show on the screen. This is a significant safety issue and one that Polestar claims is not and that their software is operating as designed.
The issue is with the displaying of the rear view camera. When I put the car in reverse the rear view camera displays on the bottom of the screen and the 360 view at the top of the screen as it should. But if I then put the car in drive (like when parallel parking) the display changes to show just the 360 view. Then when I put the car back in reverse only the 360 degree view is shown the reverse camera view is not displayed as required. The only way to get the reverse camera view to display is to tap the screen and click on the Rear view options to get the rear view to display. This is clearly a safety issue and not following federal regulations.
When parking the car and putting the car in reverse, the cameras are activated and two views are displayed simultaneously on the head unit: 1) a 360 view is displayed; and 2) rear camera view is displayed. However when putting the car in Drive and then back in Reverse again, only the 360 view displays but NOT the Rear view camera. Subsequently drive / reverse sequences during a parking maneuver do not cause the rear camera to display again, The only way to turn the rear camera back on is to keep the car in reverse and then fiddle with the head unit to tap the appropriate button sequences to turn the rear camera back on. This is not safe.
After the car is backed up in reverse, the car is placed in drive however if at a stand still you pull down on the shift lever twice the car thinks it is in adaptive cruise control and as soon as you apply pressure to the accelerator pedal the car speeds up quickly without application of pressure on the accelerator. Multiple times I had to quickly apply the brake otherwise I would have crashed into my garage. I a person was in front of the car they could be injured. The company has not addressed this issue. Also the forward collision warning system activates spontaneously and incorrectly tightening the seat belts suddenly and with force.
Related recalls
Back over prevention › Software
Polestar Automotive USA, Inc. (Polestar) is recalling certain Polestar 3 vehicles. The rearview camera image may not display when the vehicle is placed in reverse. As such, these vehicles fail to comply with the requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard number 111, "Rear Visibility."
Remedy: The software will be updated by a dealer or through an over-the-air (OTA) update, free of charge. Owner notification letters are expected to be mailed June 24, 2025.
Collision Avoidance complaints in other 3 years
Frequently asked questions
How common are collision avoidance problems on the 2025 Polestar 3?
NHTSA has 20 complaints about the driver assistance of the 2025 Polestar 3, 25% of the model year's 79 complaints. The component named most often is sensing system › camera (7 mentions).
Is there a recall for 2025 Polestar 3 collision avoidance problems?
Yes — NHTSA recall 25V-293 (software, May 7, 2025). Recall repairs are free at authorized dealers.
Is it dangerous?
Owners linked 2 crashes, 0 fires and 1 injury to driver assistance problems on this model year. If you notice symptoms, have the car checked before driving further.
Source: U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) — owner complaints through October 20, 2026, recalls and defect investigations; fuel economy from the EPA. Complaints are unverified reports and are not proof of a defect. How we rate model years.