INTERVIEW
Volvo’s Polestar is ready to come of age
Volvo’s performance electric car division is getting closer to production and Mark Smyth spoke to its COO, Jonathan Goodman
When Flash Engineering, the Swedish company that ran Volvo’s race car team became Polestar in 2005, it was turned into a performance division to try and take on the likes of BMW’s M and Mercedes’ AMG. It was a time when Volvo was going through some major changes, the most significant of which was its purchase by Chinese automotive giant Geely in 2010 after a trying time under the ownership of Ford. While the headlines were all about the new Chinese owners, behind the scenes things changed rapidly as Volvo transformed from a company that made good, safe cars to one that made stylish, modern and tech-laden models. A push for more environmentally friendly engines and materials also got underway and then in 2017 the company announced that Polestar would be launched as an electric car brand to take on the likes of Tesla and electric vehicles (EV) from major car companies. It’s first car, the Polestar 1, which goes into production later in 2019 , is actually a hybrid, using a combination...
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