2023 Polestar 2: screen or infotainment failure

Filed Mar 31, 2026 · Driver assistance · CA

Polestar 2 software version 4.2.13. While reversing out of a parking spot the rear camera briefly turned on, but after a second, the infotainment system crashed, with the screen shutting off. The infotainment system automatically rebooted after ~1min of driving. This system crash also temporarily disabled rear cross traffic alert and the parking sensors. Backup cameras are a federally mandated safety feature which reduce the risk of collisions when reversing. Without this safety feature, the risk of a collision increases.

Filed Mar 16, 2026 · Driver assistance · OR

Rear‑view camera intermittently fails to provide a usable image when shifting into reverse. Symptoms include delayed activation, black screen, frozen frame, or extremely choppy video. This results in intermittent loss of rear visibility and does not comply with FMVSS 111. The defect has persisted for several years despite multiple Polestar software updates and multiple the federal safety agency recall campaigns intended to correct the issue. The failure is reproducible and appears strongly load‑dependent. It occurs most often immediately after vehicle startup or when the infotainment system is busy with background activity such as app initialization, updates, or UI redraws. Under these conditions, shifting into reverse frequently produces no usable camera image. If I wait several seconds for the system to stabilize before shifting into reverse, the camera usually works, which indicates a resource‑contention or performance‑limitation issue within the Intel Atom–based infotainment head unit used in earlier Polestar 2 vehicles. The recall remedies have not resolved the defect, and the failure continues to occur under predictable, real‑world conditions. Because rear‑view camera activation is time‑critical for detecting pedestrians, children, pets, and obstacles, this ongoing defect presents an unreasonable safety risk. The repeated failure of software‑only remedies suggests the underlying cause may be hardware‑related. Newer Polestar and Volvo vehicles equipped with the Snapdragon‑based infotainment unit do not exhibit this behavior, which further supports the possibility of a hardware limitation in the original head unit. I request that the federal safety agency re‑evaluate the effectiveness of the current recall remedies and determine whether a hardware‑based fix is required to bring the vehicle into full compliance with FMVSS 111. This defect remains active despite multiple attempts to correct it and continues to compromise rear visibility and overall safety.

Filed Oct 10, 2025 · Electrical · IL

Infotainment system continues to be intermittently unresponsive. Today, the system was totally frozen which made it so heat/air conditioning could not be controlled, no sound for turn signals were present, and backup camera was not functioning.

Filed Jul 12, 2025 · Driver assistance · OR

Backup camera display fails with “Camera Unavailable” notification most days. When the display does work, it flickers, resets, freezes. This also interferes with park-assist display. Sometimes even forward and/or 360 view freezes as well. OTA software 3.6.4 installed in early June DID NOT did not improve or resolve this issue.

Filed Jul 8, 2025 · Driver assistance · FL

THe back up camera does not function properly about 50% of the time. I will get a blank screen with Camera not available. This has been getting worse with each update sent out by Polestar.

Filed Feb 18, 2025 · Driver assistance · GA

The car consistently has issues with the rear view camera failing when reversing with a warning stating "Camera is Temporarily Unavailable." When backing up the camera sometimes stutters, making it impossible to notice a person or object until it's too late and then it fails completely to a black screen and presents a warning that the camera is unavailable. This is an example incident that has occured every day this week, when backing out of our driveway the camera will take almost a minute to turn on as the infotainment system boots up although the car is already in reverse. As you reverse, it stutters for a few seconds before failing completely. The rear collision warning will kick and slam on the brakes as we almost backed into traffic while the camera was blacked out. The issue is further exacerbated because the design of the car is based on leveraging the rear view camera and has limited visibility if trying to back up using the rear window. The car also lowers the side view mirrors when reversing and when the camera fails, the sideview mirrors remain dipped. Usually don't notice until we get on the highway and try to change lanes and realize we can't check if there's a car in our blind spot and need to readjust the mirrors while trying to drive on Atlanta highways. We have complained multiple times and Polestar keeps insisting they have fixed it with the latest software update but nothing has changed. They have utilized insufficient hardware power for critical safety systems. We have multiple complaints recorded with Dyer and Dyer Volvo to address the issue with no resolution. This has been occurring since the car was new.