Volvo’s mission electric car has got a big kickstart now that its performance brand division Polestar has unveiled the Polestar 1, which is a hybrid performance coupe.
This series will go up against the existing quo of Tesla, and is bound to match up to traditional automakers like Mercedes-Benz and Audi in the near future.
The Polestar 1 is a two-door, 2 2 seater Grand Tourer Coupe, according to the company with an ‘Electric Performance Hybrid’ drive-train. Polestar will start the production of the Polestar 1 from mid-2019 onwards, and the company says that a maximum of 500 cars per year will be built.
All the Polestar cars will be built in China, which has become possible after Volvo Cars formed a joint venture subsidiaries of Zhejiang Geely Holding.
The Polestar 1 packs a four-cylinder Volvo Drive-E engine, which promises to deliver 600hp of power and 1,000Nm of torque, which the company says, puts this four-wheeler in the performance segment. They’re even bullish that Polestar 1’s range of 150-km ensures you’ll never have to make use of the car’s hybrid trail.
Polestar 1 has been built upon Volvo’s Scalable Platform Architecture (SPA), but Polestar assures that half of the car’s elements are new and bespoke, created by Polestar engineers.
The company has also installed new electronic valve for the first time on any road car, which helps in monitoring the driver inputs and road surface conditions. But in addition to that, the car reacts in milliseconds, changing its ride characteristics to that of the person on the wheels.
With respect to the future of the Polestar series, the company confirmed that all cars in their part will feature a full-electric powertrain. They’ve also given an estimated time-frame that the Polestar 2 and Polestar 3 could go into production later in 2019.
While the Polestar 2, their first battery electric vehicle (BEV) will go up against the Tesla Model 3, Polestar has indicated that the Polestar 3 will be a large SUV-style BEV.
