Polestar, the performance division of Swedish carmaker Volvo, has announced that it will design and build its very own electric sports car.
Up until now, Polestar has been tasked primarily with taking every day Volvos and transforming them into performance variants, like the 362bhp V60 Polestar estate.
However, according to Volvo boss Hakan Samuelsson, Polestar will take a leaf from Mercedes-AMG’s book, which builds its own supercars like the AMG GT in addition to making ‘roided-up Merc variants.
Rumours suggest that the as-yet unnamed Polestar electric car will use a tweaked and tuned version of a new all-electric powertrain that’s soon due to be introduced to the S90 and V90 range.
It isn’t currently clear whether the car will share a platform with the V90 and S90, which is based on Volvo’s Scalable Product Architecture underpinnings, or whether it’ll be a bespoke chassis all of its own.
As well as that, the news comes soon after Volvo’s parent company Geely announced that it had bought a majority stake in British sports car manufacturer Lotus.
Along with making its own range of cars, Lotus has a long history of lending its engineering expertise to other manufacturers, and so it’s possible that the Polestar electric car could feature some Lotus input.
It’s believed that the new car will also coincide with a Volvo entry into Formula E, with the manufacturer’s Polestar Cyan Racing team expected to start competing in the electric car racing series next year.
