2026 Polestar 5 Ride-Along Preview: Targeting Porsche and Lucid

It sure is roomy back here.

I’m in the back seat of a camo’d Polestar 5, somewhere on the vast plot of land that is MIRA, the automotive development center tucked away north of Coventry in the UK. Up front is Chris Baguley, vehicle dynamics engineer and chief 5 test driver. Baguley is casually increasing the speed at which we traverse a simple coned-out course, talking about the deliberately passive nature of the car and how development is nearly done. I’m listening intently, trying to suss out the body movements that align with what he’s saying and what his hands are doing. Yet a not-so-small voice in my head keeps going back to the limo-like legroom on offer.

The combination of pace and space on display here makes it clear: the next era of Polestar is coming, and the Swedish brand is aiming higher than ever before.

After a few laps I swap with my fellow journalist and take shotgun up front. It’s a suitably sporty feel even on the right side of the car—yes, we’re in the UK, but this is a global development mule—largely thanks to a super-low seating position and accompanying cowl height. Height is a central concern of 5 development, the tarmac-skimming nose dictating a very compact front suspension. As Baguley explains, there’s no adaptive setup under there. “If this is to be a driver’s car, but also a GT car, we’ve kind of stripped it back and said ‘do we need them?’” He likens active anti-roll bars and rear-wheel steer to a brochure list: nice-to-haves, but not necessary for an engaging drive.

This isn’t the top performance model, but what Baguley calls a mid-level setup. He explains that due to this, the 5 is setup for a bit of understeer as it nudges towards its limits. The word he keeps coming back to is “natural:” Natural responses and natural torque build up from the steering. As he lifts off, the nose tucks in; when he combines the lift with a quicker yank of the wheel, the 5 tracks a tighter line, outside tires gently protesting but the sedan remaining neutral and composed.

There isn’t much to glean from the interior beyond dimensions, as Baguley points out it is very much a work-in-progress layout. Not that I can take photos anyway: MIRA staff taped over laptop and phone lenses before we entered the facility, and I had to leave my SLR at front security. No messing about, then.

From our limited time together, I’d hazard a guess that horsepower hovers between 450 to 500. There is no artificial soundtrack to go along with the forward progress, just a light whir. How much of that will survive the transition to production remains to be seen. Nonetheless, the short drive is enough to be optimistic about: even with months of development left, the ride and handling balance suggests the Polestar 5 will be a viable alternative to the likes of the Tesla Model S, Porsche Taycan, and Lucid Air.

At Polestar’s original UK R&D facility on-site at MIRA, we get a close-up look at the 5’s bespoke chassis. While Polestars 1 through 4 used existing platforms from within the massive Geely network, this new platform is Polestar through and through. It is a bonded aluminum platform, with torsional rigidity “approaching carbon tub levels” according to Steve Swift, director of vehicle engineering. That’s on this extended-length setup, too: the Polestar 5 features “foot garages,” carve-outs in the floor where the battery isn’t placed to maximize passenger space. Dropping the foot garages will shorten the platform for Polestar 6 duty, the open-air sports car that formed the basis of the Concept BST that debuted at Goodwood. The P5’s body-in-white weighs just 220 pounds (100 kilograms). The team is cagey about battery specifics, only confirming an 800-volt architecture, and a battery capacity of “111-ish kilowatt hours.”

The custom platform allowed for that low nose as well. According to Swift, the engineering team had to get creative to clear the nose, moving the suspension wishbones in-wheel. The result is just 6.3 inches (160 millimeters) of front suspension travel. The rear suspension is much taller—for a more GT-like ride, you see—but the bulk is hidden within the 5’s shape. Like the Polestar 4 coupe-over, the sedan does without a rear window; instead, the glass of the roof terminates just aft of the rear passengers. The added reinforcements behind the seats contributes to the ultra-stiff platform.

Will we see other brands under the Geely umbrella use this from-the-ground-up platform? No one will confirm or deny, though as Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath says with a grin, "it would be selfish" for the brand to keep it to itself. Ingenlath is a champion of sharing when it makes sense: he and the team acknowledge the electronics base carries over from other models, for example. "If it's great tech it's great tech," he states, comparing the approach to cooking. "A cook takes multiple ingredients and creates a marvellous meal," muses Ingenlath.

Throughout the trip, Swift, Allen, and Ingenlath reiterate the importance of the UK presence. It isn’t a coincidence that the company’s R&D facilities are nestled within a stone’s throw of half a dozen F1 teams. The company acknowledges the depth and breadth of talent here and is cultivating it: what started as a team of 50 in 2019 is now ten times that. During dinner, there is talk of a great map, tying every engineer to previous projects, from Swift’s long stint at Lotus to work on the current plug-in hybrid London Taxi. Needless to say, it’d be a fascinating infographic.

Even the move to the dedicated Apollo facility doesn’t mean the brand will abandon MIRA. According to the team, the location is part of the brand DNA. For a Swedish company that produces multiple models in China, this global approach is key, especially with the march upmarket. We look forward to driving the finished product next year.

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