Polestar, formerly Volvo's in-house tuner, will forge ahead as a standalone brand within Volvo Cars Group. On Monday, the brand announced it broke ground on its first manufacturing facility in Chengdu, China. It will be the assembly plant for all future Polestar models.

Volvo already has a plant in Chengdu and the new plant will follow typical Chinese government regulations for vehicle production. Polestar and Volvo Cars Group will build the vehicles in a joint-venture between two Zhejiang Geely Holding Group companies. Geely owns Volvo Cars Group as well.

Polestar said in the announcement that the state-of-the-art facility will be the most environmentally-responsible car factory in China and one of the greenest vehicle production facilities in the world. The brand targets Gold status in the globally recognized LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) ratings once it completes construction.

Not only will the new Chengdu facility build Polestars, it will include a customer experience center with product experts on hand and a customer test track. The track will let customers—or should we say "subscribers"—push the brand's vehicles to their limits in safe conditions.

Polestar 1

Polestar 1

Polestar's first car, the Polestar 1 plug-in hybrid sport coupe, will arrive with 600 horsepower and 738 pound-feet of torque. It promises 93 miles of all-electric range as well.

The carbon-fiber-bodied car will boast a unique ownership model. Polestar will sell the car via subscriptions for two or three years. The brand says its service will be all inclusive and no down payment will be necessary—just monthly payments.

Construction of the plant should be complete in mid-2018, and Polestar previously said it will be entirely operational in 2019. It will build just 500 Polestar 1 plug-in hybrids per year.