Mercedes-Benz C220 vs Polestar 2 Long Range

What's the difference?

Do you know how many bones you have in your body? Stop counting, there are 207. And if say half those bones were replaced with different ones would you consider yourself to still be the same? Well that’s what Benz has done with the new C-Class – sort of. Of the roughly 13,000 parts which make up a C-Class car, 6500 of them have been modified or changed.

You don’t need to know every change to the new C-Class, but at the end of this review you will be across the differences that you can see, feel and hear.

Just a note before we start. The top-of-the-range Mercedes-AMG C63 S arrives in early 2019 and wasn’t available to drive at the Australian C-Class launch. That’s why we’ll focus on the other grades here - the C 200, C 220 d, C 300 and C 43. We’ll test drive and review the Australian C 63 S when it arrives – promise.

The Polestar 2 was one of the first electric vehicles (EVs) in Australia to break through to the mainstream, however it has always been relegated to the Tesla Model 3’s shadow.

As a result Polestar is constantly playing catch up, releasing update after update for this premium-pushing electric liftback. The most notable was a major mid-life update in 2024.

Two years after this, Polestar has just rolled out the 2026 model year (MY26) update which introduces a range of subtle changes, largely under the surface.

It comes as Polestar is now introducing newer models, there’s mounting pressure from legacy carmakers who are only now catching up to EV tech, and Australians are moving away from buying passenger cars to SUVs.

Has this latest update improved the appeal? Read on to find out.