The Polestar 5 will sit at the top of the all-electric automaker’s lineup, and promises real sports sedan aspirations.
- Polestar unveiled the bonded aluminum chassis that will underpin the Polestar 5, which is a production evolution of the Precept concept and will be the automaker’s flagship model.
- The company claims the chassis is as tight as a supercar, combining high torsional rigidity and light weight.
- Look for a production version of the Polestar 5 in 2024.
Just two days after making a philosophical declaration of independence with its Super Bowl ad, which mocked Tesla and Volkswagen specifically and all other carmakers generally, electric vehicle maker Polestar released pictures and details of the all-new lightweight bonded aluminum spaceframe around which it will wrap both its 2024 Polestar 5 sedan and our hopes for a sporty electric future.
The four-door Polestar 5 “is being designed with torsional rigidity superior to that of a traditional two-seat sports- or supercar,” Polestar said. “The decision to develop a bespoke platform has also enabled the brand to deliver a production model that remains true to the Precept concept car that inspired it.”
The Polestar 5 comes directly from the Polestar Precept concept of 2020. Last fall the company announced that it would take that concept and make a production electric performance four-door GT out of it. The exposed aluminum you see here is the basis for that.
You may recall the all-too-limited-edition Polestar 1. That car was a hybrid but man was it stylish. How sporty it was depended on how good you were at adjusting its four-wheel adjustable shocks, but the Polestar 1 came and went so quickly it almost doesn’t count. And while that car had a gasoline engine component, all future Polestars will be all-electric, all the time—and sporty, like the one that will come from this new chassis.
“We knew we wanted this car to be lightweight, we knew we wanted high quality and we knew we wanted it quickly,” said Pete Allen, head of Polestar UK R&D. “This architecture delivers outstanding dynamic and safety attributes, with low investment technology applicable to high production volumes.”
Polestar started out as a Volvo tuner, remember, brought in-house by Volvo in hopes, maybe, of becoming the Swedish equivalent of BMW’s M or Mercedes’ AMG. In the last several years it has become a brand unto itself, making luxury sporty cars that wouldn’t otherwise fit into either Volvo or Geely, the new brand’s parent companies. This production collaboration started out promisingly with the Polestar 1 hybrid. From those hybrid roots came the cleverly named and all-electric Polestar 2 hatchback/sedan, which is available in showrooms now. It is based on the same compact modular architecture as the Volvo XC40, which recently added an all-electric Recharge model to its lineup using Polestar’s battery and motor tech. Sometime this year the Polestar 3 E-SUV will bow. Out there somewhere will be a Polestar 4, said to be a direct competitor to the Tesla Model Y. By the time the 5 arrives in 2024, Polestar will be an all-electric brand with pretentions of both luxury and performance, a promising pairing.
Polestar showed some of the Polestar 5’s details last year. You can follow a YouTube series chronicling the car’s drive from concept to production in the series above. While this particular latest step in the brand’s evolution was short on specifics—like how much power, how much range, and how much this thing will cost—it was mostly hopeful as far as Polestar making cars that are fun to drive. We’ll know just how fun come 2024.
Keyword: Aluminum Space Frame Chassis Gives the Polestar 5 a Supercar’s Skeleton