Swedish automotive brand Polestar has teased its first electric SUV, the Polestar 3. Again.
Polestar, Volvo’s electric vehicle subsidiary, earlier this year launched the Polestar 2 in Australia, an electric sedan built to compete with the Tesla Model 3 head-on. It’s an attractive car that we reviewed quite positively, although it still suffers from the electric vehicle industry’s supply shortage issues.
But now the Swedish automotive company is teasing the electric SUV again, revealing some juicy specs and a nice side-profile shot of the vehicle.
Volvo is doing something weird with this new car. Although it’s happy to show off this side-view shot of the vehicle, the “world premiere” is scheduled for October 2022. We’ll likely learn pricing and individual marketing availability at this time.
Polestar 3. The SUV for the electric age.
World premiere October 2022. Read more: https://t.co/dUSqE3uYZF pic.twitter.com/fiPPpnn5JF— Polestar (@PolestarCars) June 7, 2022
Check-in with this page once Volvo officially reveals the car. For now, though, we know enough to talk about it.
The Polestar 3 — the Model X/Y killer?
The one thing we know for certain is that the Polestar 3 is the subsidiary’s entry into the electric SUV market. If you have a look at the electric cars available in Australia at the moment, they’re mostly SUVs.
Late last year, Polestar began to tease the car with this super ugly prototype.
In the same post, Volvo discussed that the Polestar 3 would be built in the U.S.. We now know that it will also be built in China. Additionally, Polestar has said that they want to launch a new car every year for the next three years, starting with the Polestar 3.
Last month, the Polestar 3, 4 and 5 were confirmed for Australia.
“Polestar 3 is the SUV for the electric age. Our design identity evolves with this high-end large luxury EV, with a strong, individual brand character,” said Thomas Ingenlath, the CEO of Polestar, in the June teaser.
“With this car, we bring the ‘sport’ back to the SUV, staying true to our performance roots.”
In case you didn’t know, the Polestar name wasn’t always associated with electric cars. In the times of old, “Polestar” was the performance division of Volvo, much like FPV was for Ford in Australia, or HSV for Holden. It later became an all-electric brand in 2017, two years before the Polestar 2 was released in Europe.
Polestar 3 specs
Even though the official reveal is happening in October, we know a decent amount about the Polestar 3’s specs.
Firstly, the car will feature an expected WLTP range of over 600km. That’s greater than the WLTP range of the Polestar 2 long-range single motor model (about 542km, the greatest range of the Polestar 2 variants). The launch model will feature a dual-motor drivetrain.
For the sake of comparison, the WLTP range of the Tesla Model X (Tesla’s expensive SUV) is 560km on the furthest range model.
Additionally, we know that the car will feature LiDAR sensor technology from Luminar and Nvidia computing power. Together, this powers the car’s “autonomous highway piloting”, which the Polestar 3 will come with.
It’s also more than likely that the Polestar 3 will feature Apple CarPlay support, as the Polestar 2 is receiving the functionality later this month.
When will the Polestar 3 come to Australia?
Back in December, Volvo expected that the Polestar 3 would be launched in 2022, however, the company said that production will begin in early 2023. While Australian availability hasn’t been confirmed, it’s reasonable to expect that it will be sometime after the launch in the U.S. and Europe. No word on pricing yet, either.