The all-new Polestar 1 performance PHEV is taking another step toward production with verification prototypes being tested in Sweden.
The development of the battery electric vehicles from Polestar, Volvo’s emerging battery electric vehicle brand, has taken another step forward.
The development of the Polestar 1 has moved off the computer and drawing board “with the production of the first series of “road-going” verification prototype, or VP, cars in Sweden.
“The assembly of the VP cars means that the Polestar 1 has taken its next step towards production,” says Thomas Ingenlath, chief executive officer of Polestar.
“This first batch of 34 cars will enable our engineers to tune the finer details of the car, ensuring that the Polestar 1 is perfect when we start to produce customer cars in the middle of next year,” he said.
(Electric Polestar 2 “five-door coupe” will deliver 350 miles, 400-plus hp. Click Here for the story.)
Produced for a number of purposes including crash tests, weather testing and on-road assessment, the VP cars form the very first fleet of Polestar 1 cars on the road, Volvo officials said.
Thomas Ingenlath, Polestar CEO, with the brand's first model, the Polestar 1 plug-in hybrid.
Construction of the cars, which takes place in a specialized prototype production facility in Gothenburg, Sweden, is largely done by hand.
It represents the first testing phase for production of Polestar 1 customer cars which will be built at the new Polestar Production Center in Chengdu, China.
(Click Here to check out Polestar’s plug-in supercar, the Polestar 1)
In addition, the carbon fiber-body of the Polestar 1 required the development of new specialized production equipment and construction techniques that will be transferred to the factory and used to build the production cars.
Production of the Polestar 1 marks the first time that a brand in the Volvo Car Group has explored carbon-fiber construction. The VP cars have allowed engineers to design, test and execute complicated construction processes with positive results.
Polestar 1's gas engine drives the front wheels, twin electric motors handling the rear.
Polestar was started in 1996 under the banner of Flash Engineering by Swedish Touring Car champion Jan “Flash” Nilsson. Having had considerable success with the touring car outfit in Europe, with over 100 wins between 1996 and 2005 using Volvos as a base, Nilsson stepped aside in 2005, selling the company to Christian Dahl. Dahl renamed it Polestar Racing before the company was absorbed by the Volvo Group.
(Volvo aiming for half its sales to be all electric by 2025. Click Here for the latest.)
Polestar went through another evolution in 2017 when Volvo decided to build on its racing and performance vehicles by focusing on building and ultimately distributing EVs.