At CES 2023, Polestar unveiled its most advanced electric SUV yet: the Polestar 3. This model features an innovative driver monitoring system developed in collaboration with Smart Eye.
The Polestar 3 blends performance, sustainability, and safety. It isn’t just a sleek, design-focused EV. It’s also one of the first production vehicles to feature a dual-camera driver monitoring system (DMS) fully integrated with its Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS).
In this Munro team teardown, we examined how this integration marks a major shift in vehicle design. Automakers now combine driver awareness with machine intelligence to reduce accidents and build confidence in semi-autonomous systems — a critical step toward the next generation of intelligent mobility.
As a result, the Polestar 3 offers more than advanced hardware — it reflects a broader trend. For automotive engineers, EV enthusiasts, and investors, this evolution points clearly to the future: smarter, safer, and more adaptive vehicles.
A Premium Electric SUV with Performance and Design Focus
Polestar 3 marks the brand’s first SUV offering, stepping firmly into the premium EV space with a low, wide stance that balances aerodynamics with interior comfort. Polestar has taken care to blend Swedish design minimalism with performance capability. Despite the SUV designation, the body maintains a sleek profile, helping reduce drag while maintaining a spacious interior. The vehicle’s seating configuration offers comfort and flexibility — with ample room in the rear and thoughtful lumbar support that impressed even seasoned reviewers at the show.
The vehicle rides on a dual-motor setup offering up to 380 kW with a performance pack — delivering over 500 horsepower. Coupled with a 111 kWh battery, the Polestar 3 targets a real-world range of over 300 miles. This efficiency places it competitively between Tesla and Audi benchmarks, offering both high output and respectable endurance.
Introducing Smart Eye: Dual-Camera Driver Monitoring System
While many OEMs now include driver-facing cameras in their ADAS suites, Polestar takes a pioneering step by integrating Smart Eye’s dual-camera DMS. Unlike traditional mono-camera systems from BMW or GM, the Polestar 3 includes two high-resolution infrared cameras: one beneath the instrument cluster and another near the dashboard tweeter. Together, they deliver precise measurements of head pose, gaze direction, and facial behavior in real-time.
This architecture enables several critical safety enhancements:
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Accurate Driver Gaze Tracking: The system knows whether the driver is scanning mirrors, looking straight ahead, or distracted by a phone.
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Drowsiness Detection: It can identify microsleeps — brief eyelid closures — and initiate alerts or safe-stop protocols.
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Inattention Monitoring: Prolonged off-road glances (e.g., looking at a phone) trigger pre-programmed responses, potentially including haptic warnings or vehicle deceleration.
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Redundancy: If one camera becomes blocked — by sunglasses or hand gestures — the other continues monitoring seamlessly.
For Level 2+ automation, these capabilities ensure the driver is “in the loop,” a critical requirement for safe implementation of advanced ADAS functions.
ADAS Integration: Enabling Smarter Autonomy
Smart Eye’s technology doesn’t just monitor. It interacts with the vehicle’s broader ADAS suite. In future iterations, the system could influence how adaptive cruise control behaves based on whether the driver is watching traffic. For example, tailgating scenarios could adapt dynamically depending on where the driver’s gaze is focused.
This bidirectional feedback loop between the human driver and the vehicle’s automation layers is foundational for scaling up to Level 3 and eventually Level 4 autonomy. By tracking real-time driver awareness, the car can intelligently decide whether to maintain hands-off functions — or return control safely to the driver.
Polestar and Smart Eye emphasize that this setup is designed for long-term adaptability. With over-the-air (OTA) updates and a high-performance computing platform onboard, the system can evolve to include features like intoxication detection, emotion recognition, and interior occupant monitoring — without requiring new hardware.
Expanding In-Cabin Sensing: Beyond the Driver
At CES, Smart Eye also demonstrated their roadmap for full interior sensing. Using additional roof-mounted and side cameras, their system can:
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Detect rear-seat passengers, including pets and children
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Recognize forgotten objects like phones or bags
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Monitor occupant activity (eating, drinking, smoking)
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Identify emotional states (anger, joy, drowsiness)
This holistic approach repositions the vehicle cabin as a responsive environment — one that personalizes safety and UX features based on real-time occupant data. Imagine a car that recognizes rising frustration in the driver and softens ambient lighting or adjusts the music. Or one that halts a shutdown if a child remains in the rear seat.
For OEMs, the value is immense. These sensors provide behavioral analytics to inform OTA software updates — enabling real-world A/B testing of features and allowing companies to refine UX based on actual human response.
The Engineering Challenge: Accuracy, Redundancy, and Trust
From an engineering standpoint, building a reliable in-cabin monitoring system means solving several hard problems:
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Latency: Real-time eye tracking must be processed with millisecond accuracy to respond effectively to distraction or drowsiness.
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Occlusion Handling: Objects like sunglasses, hands, or head tilts can block camera views — dual-camera setups reduce this failure mode.
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Privacy Considerations: Manufacturers must balance data collection with user consent, secure data pipelines, and clearly articulated opt-in/opt-out settings.
Polestar’s partnership with Smart Eye tackles these challenges by prioritizing redundancy and scalability. The system is “software-defined” and designed for modular feature expansion. Engineers can layer new functionalities without redesigning the hardware stack — preserving the investment in initial vehicle architecture.
Market Positioning and Investment Signals
Polestar 3 positions itself in the $90,000–$100,000 USD price range, making it a direct competitor to vehicles like the BMW iX, Audi Q8 e-tron, and upper-tier Tesla Model Y variants. However, it distinguishes itself with a clear focus on interior sensing and safety technology — areas increasingly valued by regulators and consumers alike.
The integration of Smart Eye’s advanced monitoring system signals that Polestar aims to be more than a style-forward EV brand — it wants to lead on driver safety and autonomy-readiness.
For investors, this is a meaningful data point. As the regulatory landscape continues to evolve — particularly in Europe, where DMS requirements are gaining traction — OEMs that build proactive, robust monitoring systems may enjoy both compliance advantages and brand trust.
Conclusion: A Smart Eye Toward the Future
The Polestar 3 isn’t just a premium electric SUV — it’s a statement about where automotive safety and automation are headed. By embedding Smart Eye’s dual-camera driver monitoring system into the core of its ADAS design, Polestar is setting a new bar for what intelligent, responsive, and human-centered vehicle cabins can achieve.
As more vehicles shift to software-defined architectures, the opportunity to personalize and evolve safety features over time becomes paramount. Polestar and Smart Eye are betting that precision gaze tracking and emotion sensing will not only improve safety — but also create better driving experiences.
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