Polestar 3, 4, 5, and 6 Hands-On Previews

Second, the company’s manufacturing footprint will expand beyond its current base in China, to South Korea and the United States, and it also has some interesting plans for charging, battery technology and autonomous driving.

These topics, and others, were among a company deep dive during its recent Polestar Day, held at the Barker Hangar at Santa Monica airport.

AutoGuide was in attendance, and here’s what we learned during a day of workshops and presentations.

During its brief history, all Polestars have been assembled in China, but that will change when production of the Polestar 3 SUV begins next year. It will be built at the company’s plant in Chengdu, China, but will also be assembled at Volvo’s plant in Ridgeville, South Carolina (near Charleston) for the North American market. Volvo is the sister company of Polestar, and both are owned by Geely, a Chinese automotive multinational.

Polestar will also expand its manufacturing base in Asia, when it begins assembling the Polestar 4 SUV in Busan, South Korea in the second half of 2025. The agreement, which is a joint venture between Polestar, Geely, and Renault Korea Motors, will produce the Polestar 4 for North American and South Korean markets.

Polestar is working with two other tech companies, Luminar and Mobileye, to bring autonomous driving capability to its production cars, beginning with the Polestar 4. It will be the first production car to carry Mobileye Chauffeur with Luminar LiDAR (light detection and ranging) to offer, “eyes-off, point-to-point autonomous driving on highways, as well as eyes-on automated driving for other environments,” Polestar said in a statement.

Mobileye Chauffeur uses three Mobileye EyeQ6 processors, front facing Luminar LiDAR, and front-facing imaging radar from Mobileye to provide the detection and artificial intelligence (AI) needed to deliver autonomous driving. LiDAR uses lasers to create a highly detailed 3D map of the surrounding environment. The version deployed by Luminar uses technology that delivers both a high level of performance and safety capabilities for production cars, according to Polestar.

One of the more interesting topics discussed during Polestar Day was V2G, which means vehicle to grid. As the name suggests, it means a vehicle’s battery can not only charge, but also discharge. The discharged energy could then be used to help power a home or electricity grid.

Polestar is working on a large vehicle-to-grid pilot project in Gothenburg, Sweden, which is using a fleet of Polestar 3 cars and is funded by Swedish Innovation Agency Vinnova. With local and national partners, including the Swedish National Grid Authority, Polestar aims to find commercial applications for V2G that can be used at scale.

Polestar is also forming a collaborative project with the California Energy Commission and the non-profit energy institute EPRI, also funded by Vinnova, for a pre-study that will create a plan for implementing V2G services in California. The pre-study begins next month and runs through October 2024.

Polestar is also developing a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) that links all its test fleet cars connected to the grid. The cloud based VPP then calculates the total capacity of the fleet’s batteries and will automatically charge or discharge depending on the grid’s demand and battery needs.

During Polestar Day, the assembled press learned more about StoreDot, an Israel-based battery tech company working with Polestar to bring the former’s fast-charging batteries to the automotive industry.

StoreDot’s extreme fast charging (XFC) technology, also known as “100-in-5”, can produce 100 miles (160 kilometers) of range in a five-minute charge. It doesn’t require a specific battery-pack format, but will instead work with existing designs, according to StoreDot.

StoreDot conducted several of its pouch cell demonstrations in Santa Monica, alongside a Polestar prototype battery module using XFC technology. A full-scale demonstration of XFC in a Polestar 5 prototype is slated for 2024.

Before wrapping up, I’ll mention that AutoGuide did get some seat time in both the Polestar 3 and 4 in Santa Monica. Neither car was available for driving, but brief, roughly 10-minute, ride-alongs were offered. Both cars were European-spec pre-production units that are being used for testing and validation around the world.

Not much could be drawn from either experience, but both cars generally felt comfortable, and were quite fast at times. We look forward to spending more time behind the wheel of both next year as they move closer to launch in North America.

Become an AutoGuide insider. Get the latest from the automotive world first by subscribing to our newsletter here.