Polestar CEO on How Design Can Convey How an EV Drives

 

(Editor's note: After posting this article it was announced that Thomas Ingenlath would be stepping down as CEO of Polestar on October 1. He will be replaced by Michael Lohscheller.) 

Recently Polestar unveiled its latest high-performance concept the Polestar 6 BST (aka Beast) while announcing that it would begin production of the Polestar 3 in South Carolina. A subsidiary of Chinese company Geely (along with automakers Volvo, Lotus, and others) the EV automaker, was previously known as the moniker for performance trim level of Volvos. 

As its own company, it's already deployed the Polestar 1 and Polestar 2 onto US roads. 

SAE had a chance to speak with Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath at the company's Corte Madera, California dealership ahead of showing off the BST at Monterey Car Week at Pebble Beach. The CEO spoke about the latest concept, the future of EVs, and how the transition to NACS J3400 was the right move for EV adoption.

While the latest concept seems to only share a few design elements with the Polestar 5, Ingelath explained that the platform of the Polestar 5 works well as a roadster. "The Polestar 5 has done so much with the aluminum space frame, it's actually straightforward to have such a strong construction even if you remove the roof"

The CEO continued that even though the Polestar 6 BST is 400 millimeters shorter than the upcoming Polestar 5, the battery pack construction of the 5 was built in a way to allow for rear passenger foot space. By removing the rear seat and of course that footwell, the Polestar can fit the same 110 kWh capacity battery pack in the Polestar 6 roadster that's slated for the Polestar 5. 

"It's not rocket science to go from a 5 to a Polestar 6 in production. So that was always the beauty of that investment into our sports car architecture," Ingelath said. 

This isn't the first time we've seen the Polestar 6, the vehicle was shown off at Monterey Car Week two years ago in a less aggressive design. The BST concept meanwhile was unveiled at the Goodwood Festival in England where Ingelath remarked "This car is a demonstration of how far we can push our performance brand - Polestar turned up to 11, if you will – and a demonstration of how we could apply the BST formula to our line-up in the future."

On the performance front, Ingelath noted that quick zero to 60 times for EVs are standard and don't necessarily qualify a vehicle to be branded performance. For those building performance EVs, "It's so difficult to get that across if you don't go into that detail of actually driving a car. If you just look at it on the spec sheet, yeah, okay, of course, that spec sheet doesn't shout 'Hey, look, that feeling that you get in that car is really special.'"

A vehicle designer by trade and former Senior Vice President of Design for Volvo, the CEO knows that what people see informs their impressions of a car's abilities, "The language, the design, talks about it and really tells you that story."

 

Not all Polestar's are sports cars. The upcoming Polestar 3 SUV has a performance-orientated design in a more family-friendly package. For this latest production vehicle, Polestar will build the Polestar 3 at the Volvo facility in South Carolina. The same factory Volvo is building the all-electric EX90 SUV. Both are based on the same SPA-2 platform. 

The plan to move manufacturing to the US was years in the making according to Ingenlath. "I think that Polestar 3 production in Charleston is a crucial element that you actually have a brand that is producing cars here, is delivering from the US, and not only that, taking it as well for export, and really having that serious ambition and respect for the market and the people," the CEO told SAE. The move requires a robust local supply chain. These needs can result in increased job opportunities in the region as both the automaker and suppliers will need to increase their headcount to keep up with production. 

In regards to the evolution of the charging infrastructure, Ingelath is pragmatic reminding people that gas stations didn't just pop up overnight. "Innovation is such a difficult job," he said. 

For the actual charging port and the move to the NACS (SAE J3400) port, Ingenlath is a fan. "I'm delighted for our customers to be able to enjoy that broad, spread-out network. It will help, especially in the US, where indeed the charging infrastructure is not sufficient today," Ingelath continued. "The engineering of this is just that much more compact, that much more lean. It enables designs that are that much more elegant. So as a designer, I fully embrace and cherish this nice engineering solution."