The company announced that the Polestar 3, the aptly anointed third vehicle from the electric performance marque, will have its official unveil in October 2022. It will be Polestar’s first sport utility vehicle made in the US.
The Polestar 3 will be the EV maker’s first vehicle made in and for the US. The Polestar 3 labels Polestar’s attempt to break into the US’s highly competitive and highly lucrative SUV market.
It will slot into the premium category when it comes out, competing with EVs like the Tesla Model X, Audi E-Tron, Mercedes-Benz EQE, Rivian R1S, and Fisker Ocean. The Polestar will be assembled at Volvo’s factory in Charleston, South Carolina, making it the company’s first EV driven on US soil.
At launch, the Polestar 3 will sport a dual-motor drivetrain and a large battery, with a range target of over 372 miles (600 km). In addition to being a higher-riding vehicle than the Polestar 2 fastback sedan, the Polestar 3 will also include a partially autonomous driving system for highway driving. That will be grateful to have a lidar sensor from supplier Luminar, which also provides components for hands-free highway driving to Volvo and Nvidia, which will give the onboard computing hardware.
Volvo, which jointly owns Polestar and its parent company Geely, has said that it will roll out a hands-free highway driving feature as part of its next big platform update, the Scalable Product Architecture (SPA2). It will arrive with the next-generation XC90 SUV and the Polestar 3 in 2022.
Polestar recently announced plans to go public by merging with a particular purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. That merger is envisioned to close “in the first half of 2022,” Polestar will be a publicly traded company.
Polestar has only released two vehicles: the $155,000 hybrid coupe Polestar 1 and the Polestar 2 sedan. In addition to the Polestar 3, the company plans to release a compact SUV (the Polestar 4) in 2023 and the Polestar 5 (née Precept) sports sedan in 2024. The company also unveiled a sleek roadster concept called the Polestar O2 and is putting its high-performance version of the Polestar 2 into limited production.
Polestar is a Swedish automotive brand founded in 1996 by Volvo Cars’ partner Flash/Polestar Racing and accepted in 2015 by Volvo, which Geely acquired in 2010. It is headquartered in Torslanda, Gothenburg, Sweden, with vehicle production in China. In addition, the company develops electric performance cars and offers performance hardware upgrades and engine software optimizations for Volvo models through their Polestar Engineered division.
The Polestar name derives from the STCC Polestar racing team, which spawned Polestar Performance AB, acquired by Volvo Cars in July 2015. The racing team switched its name to Cyan Racing while holding close ties to Volvo and Geely, later focusing on Polestar’s sister brand Lynk & Co.
In June 2017, Volvo proclaimed Polestar would begin building high-end electric performance cars under its name and badge. Polestar also serves as an innovation lab for Volvo Cars, designing designs and technologies of a more experimental nature.
In September 2021, Polestar declared an intention to go public through a business combination agreement with Gores Guggenheim Inc, a US particular purpose acquisition company.
The company’s origins can be drafted back to the foundation of Flash Engineering in 1996, a Swedish racing team competing in the Swedish Touring Car Championship (STCC). Later, the team was sold and rebranded to Polestar Racing, starting to engineer their racing Volvos in the late 2000s. In 2009 the label became the official Volvo partner to modify existing models under Polestar Performance. Volvo bought the company and brand in July 2015, showing Polestar enhanced models instantly from their resellers.
Polestar has also created prototype cars, with the first being the C30 Polestar Performance Concept Prototype (2010), with above 400 bhp (300 kW) and 510 N?m (380 lbf?ft).
The Volvo S60 Polestar Concept is the successor to the C30 Polestar, featuring 508 BHP from a modified T6 engine, established in June 2012. The car races from 0–100 km/h (0–62 mph) in 3.9 seconds with a top rate of over 300 km/h (190 mph). Motor Trend tested the car at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, where it smashed the lap record for four-door cars, matching the lap time of an Audi R8.