Polestar opens new electric performance car R&D facility in the UK

Polestar has expanded its research and development (R&D) capacity for electric vehicles with the establishment of a new facility in Coventry.

Located in Coventry, the new centre will allow Polestar to increase its own R&D capabilities and strengthens the brand’s ability to engineer its future electric performance vehicles.

In one of the world’s most prominent automotive engineering environments, Polestar’s 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.

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

Thomas Ingenlath, CEO of Polestar said:

Investing in the automotive engineering talent that the UK has to offer will strengthen our capabilities. The passion and dedication of these great engineers fit the Polestar spirit perfectly and will allow us to create some really awesome cars.

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Hans Pehrson, responsible for research and development at Polestar, added:

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.

Polestar is an electric performance car brand jointly owned by Volvo and Geely. Polestar has specific technological and engineering synergies with Volvo and benefits from significant economies of scale as a result. This facilitates the successful design, development and production of separately-branded electric performance cars.

Polestar launched in 2017 with the Polestar 1 – a low-volume Electric Performance Hybrid GT with 600hp, 1,000Nm and an electric-only range of 150 km. In 2019, the Polestar 2 was revealed as the company’s first full electric, higher volume premium car designed to compete around the Tesla Model 3. In the future, Polestar 3 will join the portfolio as a fully electric performance SUV.

Polestar www.polestar.com