Polestar’s Chengdu Production Centre will build the Polestar 1.
Polestar
It’s a start.
Today, Polestar – the electric performance car brand that’s owned by Volvo Car Group and Zhejiang Geely Holding – announced the official opening of its first production facility. The plant is in Chengdu, China and will built the Polestar 1, a low-volume plug-in hybrid vehicle with a carbon fiber body and a steel chassis, for both the Chinese market and export markets around the world. Polestar is highlighting the detailed work that is happening in the plant, like the “truly unforgiving” Customer Acceptance Line, where Polestar auditors take “more than eight hours to inspect the car according to ‘hypercritical sensory standards’, ranging from smell to touch and everything in between” the company says. You can get a view into the production process here. Polestar says the first customer deliveries of the Polestar 1, which starts at $155,000, are expected before the end of 2019.
“This is a hugely proud moment for the whole team at Polestar.”
Today’s opening is about more than the car, though, as it also marks the official start of Polestar as a “World Manufacturer Identifier” (WMI). This means it is now a stand-alone vehicle manufacturer within the Geely group. The Chengdu plant is expected to be certified as a LEED Gold facility later this year, part of what the Polestar calls its values of “pure, progressive, performance.”
The Polestar 1 looks a lot like a two-door version of a Volvo S90, but with a gas-electric powertrain that produces 600 horsepower and 738 pound-feet of torque. Unlike many plug-in hybrids, the Polestar 1 packs a sizable battery pack – 34 kWh – which should be good for over 90 miles of electric range. Polestar says it will only make 1,500 of these PHEVs – 500 a year at the Chengdu plant – and then shift focus to other vehicles.
Like, for example, the Polestar 2. While the Polestar 1 is a PHEV, Polestar isn’t going to be making these gas-electric half-measures for that much longer. The upcoming Polestar 2 is an all-electric crossover/SUV/coupe design that Polestar will start building in Luqiao, China, in early 2020. The Polestar 2 is a high-tech beast that will integrate Google’s Android operating system and could be available with a subscription model.
Details are not yet confirmed for the Polestar 2, but the company is expecting a range of around 275 miles from a powerful zero-emission powertrain that should produce 402 horsepower and 487 pound-feet of torque. The Polestar 2 is expected to go on sale in the U.S. in the middle of 2020 with a starting price of $55,000.
