Want To Ditch Your Crappy Tesla For A Much Cooler EV? You Can Lease A Polestar 3 For Up To $20,000 Off

Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s descent into fascism is bad across the board. It’s certainly bad for our country and the world as a whole, but it’s also bad for Tesla. Sales are down 45 percent in Europe, for instance, and a lot of Tesla owners are trying to get out of their leases or sell their cars, whether that be because they’re anti-Musk or are just worried about anti-Musk vitriol from other civilians. 

Other automakers are taking advantage of Tesla’s tanking reputation by offering special deals for conquest customers, with the latest being Polestar. The Geely-owned Swedish EV brand is giving Tesla owners up to $20,000 off if they switch into a Polestar 3, a fantastic SUV that’s way cooler than any Tesla.

Now, Polestar isn’t just offering a lump sum of $20k to Tesla owners. The brand has already been advertising a $15,000 “clean vehicle incentive,” double the savings of the federal EV tax credit that the 3 is ineligible for. For a single-motor 3 with no options, which has an MSRP of $68,900 including destination, that brings the monthly payment down to $599 per month for 27 months, with $5,599 due at signing. For a dual-motor 3, which has more power but less range, Polestar is advertising the same $599/mo deal despite the dual-motor car having a $5,900 greater starting price.

On top of that $15,000 incentive, Polestar will give current Tesla owners an additional $5,000 off, which it calls the “Polestar Conquest Bonus.” The automaker says that both owners and lessees of Teslas are eligible, and it doesn’t seem like there are any restrictions for model, vehicle age, options, or mileage. The brand’s website doesn’t have examples of lease pricing with the Tesla bonus added, but it should bring that lease price down even more. These offers are valid until February 28, so if you’ve got a Tesla you want to get rid of, you’ll need to do it quickly.

Even without the extra incentive, I’d be quick to recommend the Polestar 3 to anyone looking for a new EV, especially in its size and price class. Sized similarly to a Porsche Cayenne, and with a similarly sporty character, the 3 rides on the same platform as the Volvo EX90. The base model has one electric motor sending 299 horsepower and 361 pound-feet of torque to the rear wheels, with a 7.5-second 0-to-60-mph time and an EPA range of up to 350 miles depending on wheel size. Dual-motor cars add a second motor at the front axle for all-wheel drive, upping total output to 489 hp and 620 lb-ft, and dropping the 0-to-60 time to 4.8 seconds. The dual-motor 3 doesn’t take a huge range hit either, with up to 315 miles. A Performance pack upgrade for the dual-motor car gets you 517 hp and 671 lb-ft, a 4.5-second 0-to-60 time, and a 279-mile range.

As great as the Polestar 3 is to drive both around town and on a twisty road, it’s the 3’s design that I really love. It’s a truly phenomenal looking thing both inside and out, with an aesthetic that’s genuinely minimalist, unlike the barren bullsh*t that Tesla peddles. Its Android-based infotainment system should be fairly easy for Tesla drivers to adapt to as well; the 14.5-inch touchscreen looks really nice, offers built-in Google Maps and tons of apps, and Polestar gives its cars regular over-the-air updates to fix bugs and add features. The 3 also just gained broader phone-as-key capability, and the normal “key” is a keycard just like on Teslas.

One of the most appealing aspects to current Tesla owners may be the Polestar’s charging capabilities. While every Polestar 3 still uses a CCS plug and not the NACS plug, you’ll have access to more than 17,800 Tesla Superchargers across the U.S. by using an adapter purchasable through Polestar’s showrooms. The Polestar 3 can charge at up to 250 kW — the fastest that the vast majority of Supercharger stations can currently do anyway — good enough to go from 10 to 80 percent in 30 minutes.