So far in the race to electrification, the Porsche Taycan has done extremely well, despite ferocious competition from the Tesla Model S and Lucid Air, both of which can now be had with four-digit outputs. However, the German’s most important competitor doesn’t come from America, and it hasn’t even landed on the market yet. Enter the Polestar 5, whose production version has been rendered here.
Back in 1996, Polestar emerged as a Swedish racing team. A few years later, the company started spicing up Volvos, which led to it becoming an in-house Volvo tuner in 2009. However, Volvo, which is owned by Chinese holding Geely, fully took over Polestar six years after that. And, as of 2015, Polestar was reinvented as a builder of electrified vehicles and Volvo’s innovation laboratory.
So far, the Swedish-headquartered, Chinese-owned fresh name has done well, albeit with its models sharing their platform with machines built by Volvo, Geely and the also-Geely-owned Lynk & Co. There was the OG Polestar 1, a 2+2 grand tourer hybrid whose production ended earlier this year and, from that point on, Polestar switched to battery-powered models.
For the time being, you can only find the Polestar 2 EV liftback in showrooms. However, come October 2022, this will be joined by the Polestar 3. The latter is an SUV sharing its SPA2 platform with the XC90 successor (the rumor mill talks about this using the EXC90 or Embla name) and will be built in the U.S. to keep the cost in checkโexpect a starting price of around $75,000.
Next year, the Sino-Swedish carmaker is set to give us the Polestar 4, a crossover-coupe take on the Polestar 3, which should land as a 2024 model. As for the 2024 calendar year, this is when Polestar will unveil the production version of the gorgeous Precept concept of 2020, the Polestar 5 four-door flagship.
And while the 5, whose prototype wowed the crowd at the Goodwood Festival of Speed back in June, has its eyes on the Taycan, Polestar will also target Porsche’s upcoming EV sportscars via the production version of the Polestar 02 battery-powered 2+2 roadster concept unveiled earlier this year.
The Polestar 5 flagship electric sedan: a force to be reckoned with
Returning to the Polestar 5, the Goodwood FOS protype, came accompanied by some numbers. So we now know that the sedan will have a version animated by dual electric motors delivering 884 hp. For the record, the company is building a dedicated assembly plant of China for this model. Naturally, this is included in the company’s plan to become carbon-neutral by 2030.
And you can expect all the luxury and the driver assistance features in the world to the packed in the top dog of the premium carmakerโthis is precisely what positions it closer to the Taycan than the said U.S. duo.
Meanwhile, we’ve brought along an independent rendering that portrays the Polestar 5 based on some patent drawings that leaked onto the web ahead of the said FOS parade.
Thanks to the artist known as Larson Design (aka lars_o_saeltzer), Volvo fans get their fair share of boxiness here (as they did when the digital master penned a hypothetical 2023 Volvo wagon EV successor). However, these traditional styling cues are mixed with complex surface treatment that speaks of the fully electrified genre this machine belongs to.
And, based on the Polestar 1 and 2, we’re expecting the real deal to be even more appealing than the machine portrayed in these images.