Polestar builds a little excitement

A powerful figure in the car industry once described the electric car as the car you want your neighbour to drive.

That was when electric vehicles were small, rather odd-looking vehicles with the performance of a golf buggy.

Things have changed a bit since then.

For one thing, that bloke is now sitting in a Japanese goal.

For another, electric vehicles have become more interesting, with the potential to generate a whole lot more interest.

One of the companies at the forefront of this movement is Tesla which it seems has been able to galvanise buyers.

But Volvo’s offshoot Polestar wants a piece of the action and has a brief from head office to build performance focused electric vehicles — Tesla beaters, if you will.

So far it’s produced the Polestar 1, a plug-in hybrid and the Polestar 2 battery electric car, its first volume production model.

A Polestar 3 — an electric coupe style SUV — is in the pipeline.

The company has just expanded its research and development capacity with the establishment of a new R&D centre in in Coventry in the UK.

The new facility will allow Polestar to increase its own R&D capabilities and will further strengthen it’s ability to engineer future vehicles.

Located in one of the world’s most prominent automotive engineering environments, the UK engineering operation will initially employ around 60 engineers, bringing a wealth of specialised skills to the company that will specifically support the development of future Polestar cars — beyond Polestar 3.

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These engineers have already been involved in preliminary development work for Polestar and will now be fully immersed in future projects as part of the global Polestar engineering network.

Hans Pehrson, responsible for Research and Development at Polestar, comments: “Polestar’s role as a technology spearhead requires new and developing skills in low-volume, light-weight, multi-material performance car engineering, and the new UK operation will allow us to take the next steps towards our future cars.

“The team that will kick start the new UK R&D subsidiary is already well-versed in Polestar engineering philosophy, and we will expand the initial team further during the course of 2019.

“These engineers will be a great complement to our existing R&D team based in Sweden, and other supporting teams around the world.”