The days of Rebel Blue Volvo wagons swilling gasoline and squirting oil into spinning turbos may be about to end. Volvo’s performance arm, Polestar, will now engineer an entirely new lineup of electrified vehicles that won’t wear the Volvo name.
Without revealing what its mysterious double-arrow logo represents, Volvo assures speed freaks that the new Polestar will be a “high performance car company” and continue to modify gas-powered models under the Polestar Engineered label. In a press release, Volvo CEO HÃ¥kan Samuelsson says that Polestar “will be a credible competitor in the emerging global market for high performance electrified cars.” Take that to mean Volvo is shooting for Tesla and other electric upstarts that favor supercar-punching acceleration. Volvo’s press release uses corporate buzzwords like “synergies” and “bespoke” to describe the future relationship between Polestar and its parent. Like Genesis and Hyundai, the two will share chassis, electronics, and various bits with one another, although how far Polestar distances itself from Volvo’s stellar exterior and interior designs is up for discussion. But they should be just as beautiful, as design chief Thomas Ingenlath will lead the new company as CEO. Volvo did not say if Ingenlath would stay in his current role or if it would continue to build EVs under its own name. Possibly, every plug-in model could be transferred to Polesta...