There’s a new name in the electric car world as of this week: Polestar. Ring any bells? It should, for this is a brand with a penchant for reinventing itself.
JUN 22nd 2017
Polestar to branch off as high‑performance EV manufacturer
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Polestar began as a Swedish race team, working with Volvo since 1996 and winning the Scandinavian Touring Car championship. Australians know Polestar for a different car: a V8 Supercar. It won, too.
Today Polestar is synonymous with Volvo and particularly heavily breathed-on Volvos. Since 2015 Polestar has been the official performance arm of Volvo Cars, coming up with machines like the 362bhp V60 Polestar. The £50k car – Sweden’s answer to M or AMG – is highly thought of but remains a rare sight on UK roads.
Now it’s all change again for Polestar because it is becoming “a new separately-branded electrified global high-performance car company”. That’s exciting enough, but it gets better with the news that the new Polestar is to be headed up by Volvo design director, Thomas Ingenlath – the man responsible for all those fine looking Volvos on the roads these days. And his No2 will be Jonathan Goodman, the British-born communications executive who worked at Peugeot Citroen for many years before becoming Volvo’s senior vice president corporate communication.
With a designer and a PR man in charge, we should be in for an exciting time ahead from Polestar!
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So what about the cars? No detail as yet, just an assurance the the stand-alone Polestar range of new electrified models will all be high performance. They will compete in “all market segments” and be aimed at the “world’s most demanding, progressive drivers”.
We can assume they will be Volvos underneath but they will not wear Volvo badges, just the Polestar name. Hot Volvos will continue to be sold under the Polestar Engineered brand. A Polestar spokesman said: “Synergies with Volvo will allow us to design, develop and build world-beating electrified high performance cars.”
New Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath said: “I am really excited to take up the challenge of establishing this exciting brand, developing a fabulous portfolio of bespoke products and channelling the passion we have throughout the Polestar team. The next chapter in Polestar’s history is just beginning.”
Whatever’s next from Polestar, we can’t wait to see it…
Top photograph courtesy of LAT Images
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