Polestar Bids 'Farewell' to Volvo Cars

Polestar said goodbye to Volvo Cars over the internet this week. While we like what Polestar does, the social media posting is a slightly sanctimonious. The brand will undoubtedly continue to use Volvo cars as a base for all of its upcoming builds and persist under the same corporate umbrella. It would be a bit like AMG wishing Mercedes-Benz a fond farewell in 2005 and then continuing to use its vehicles.

They’re technically separate entities but both AMG and Polestar exist as a result of the core brand and operate under the watchful eye of a much larger company — Daimler for AMG and Geely for Polestar. The only difference is that the Swedish performance arm is, like Volvo, focusing on electrification for added power while the Germans continue with rip-roaring internal combustion powerplants without even a hint of EV adoption.

Just kidding. Mercedes-AMG’s director of vehicle development, Drummond Jacoy, already confirmed the brand has to “reinvent” itself when it comes to electric cars, promising mild-hybrid applications last Janurary.

However, the Polestar brand will enter into its newish life as an electric-focused company from day one. Now led by Thomas Ingenlath, former design head at Volvo, Polestar promises an array of “world beating electrified high performance cars.”

We don’t yet know what that looks like, though. Volvo has already vowed to electrify all of its models starting in 2019, so Polestar really only has to improve their performance to maintain its own claims. But there are industry rumors that the brand will introduce standalone models, as well as battery-only cars, prior to Volvo’s EV changeover. Either way, the performance models won’t carry the mainstream label.

An official announcement is expected in October, specifying what sort of ambitions Polestar has for its electrified range of performance-focused models. We’re estimating extremely high performance numbers and imagine anything with less than 300 horsepower would be a nonstarter.

In July, Autocar suggested Polestar’s first entry could be a sexy 600 bhp coupe, though no official details cropped up during the recent Frankfurt Auto Show. However, it would be a reasonable assumption that the company’s initial model will be a beefed-up plug-in hybrid based on Volvo’s T8 twin engine technology.

[Images: Polestar]