Polestar, an electric car-focused brand in the Volvo Car Group, is gearing up to launch its first vehicle. The team released a video reel Thursday of the Polestar 1 plug-in hybrid tearing up the track, ahead of its plans to reach the production-ready stage in the middle of next year. It’s set to impress, with one YouTube commenter claiming “I’m going to sell my organs to get this car.”
The aim is to impress consumers with a strong market debut: Polestar chief test driver Joakim Rydholm said in a statement that when driving the vehicle, “you should immediately feel like you are in control and that the car is ready to respond to your input, no matter what you want to do.” The current focus on perfecting the feel of the drive by tweaking steering responsiveness and torque vectoring calibration. The tests were held at the Hällered Proving Ground in Sweden, with a 42-degree chill and 0.3 inches of precipitation. The team sent a prototype around a 3.9-mile high-speed track at 136 mph with a 45-degree banked section, before sending it out onto a 1.9-mile handling track at 80 mph.
Polestar 1 in motion.
See more: Here’s How the Polestar 1 Compares to the Tesla Model 3
While the first vehicle needs gasoline, all future vehicles are set to use an all-electric setup. The brand has made no secret about its plans to take on Tesla, directly declaring that the Polestar 2 will “join the competition around the Tesla Model 3.” The Polestar 1 is the first step toward this goal, with an electric-only range of 93 miles that the team claims is the furthest of any such hybrid in the world.
The Polestar 1 will offer 600 horsepower and 1,000 Newton meters of torque. Getting your hands on the Polestar 1 may prove difficult, though, as the company plans to only produce 500 cars before moving onto the second and third vehicles — the latter of which will face off against the Tesla Model X in the sports utility vehicle area. The Polestar vehicles will come as part of a subscription model, available for a fixed term of two to three years.
The first cars are set to enter production after the final prototyping phase, scheduled for early next year at the company’s Chengdu factory in China.
Related video: Introducing Polestar 1
