Volvo’s performance brand, Polestar has revealed its first car.
Polestar 1 is a luxury performance electric car, which is the first of three vehicles that the brand will push.
The new car produces 600bhp and 1,000Nm of torque from its four-cylinder Volvo Drive-E hybrid engine.
This engine allows the car to travel up to 150km (93 miles) on pure electric power alone – the longest full electric range of any hybrid car on the market
Polestar has combined two electric motors that drive the rear wheel, which combined produced 215bh with a 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine which produces 377bhp and powers the front wheels.
Thomas Ingenlath, Chief Executive Officer of Polestar said; “Polestar 1 is the first car to carry the Polestar on the bonnet.
“A beautiful GT with amazing technology packed into it – a great start for our new Polestar brand.
“All future cars from Polestar will feature a fully electric drivetrain, delivering on our brand vision of being the new standalone electric performance brand”.
Polestar is now operating as the technology spearhead for the Volvo Car Group but will also benefit from the engineering synergies and significant economies of scale as a result.
The car is a two-door four-seater Grand Tourer Coupe and just 500 cars will be built per year.
Much like the new Volvo XC40 the car will benefit subscription service which offers all payments and charges associated with the car in one monthly fee.
It is based upon Volvo’s Scalable Platform Architecture (SPA) but approximately 50% is new and bespoke, created by Polestar’s engineers.
The car is slightly shorter than Volvo’s V90 and shares the shape of some Volvo saloons but with a much more muscular and dominant front-end and new rear light C-shape design signature.
“Most electric cars are fast – that’s a product of the attributes of an electric motor,” said Thomas Ingenlath.
“However, for Polestar, performance is far more holistic than just straight-line speed.”
“It’s about acceleration, of course, but it’s also about cornering, braking, suspension control, chassis feedback and steering feel. This is what Polestar calls Progressive Performance.”
All future Polestar cars will feature a fully electric powertrain. Polestar 2 will start production later in 2019 and will be the first battery electric vehicle (BEV) from the Volvo Car Group.
Polestar 2 will be a mid-sized fully-electric car that will join the competition around the Tesla Model 3.
Polestar 2 is currently in the engineering phase and will start production before the end of 2019, delivering higher volumes than Polestar 1.
Polestar 3 is in the finishing stages of design and will be a larger SUV-style BEV sitting between Polestar 1 and Polestar 2 in terms of volume and pricing.
“Being part of the Volvo Car Group enables Polestar to design, develop and engineer our cars using the processes of a well-established car company but at the same time, enables us to experiment with new technology in lower volume cars outside the mainstream segments.
“This pace of development means as we announce the future of the company, we can also already confirm that a portfolio of three Polestar cars will be on sale within the next four year timescale.”
It will be manufactured in a purpose-built production facility in China
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