With time ticking away until the Polestar 2 performance EV sedan goes intro production in early 2020, the company says the car's chassis and suspension development are in their final phases.
The Hällered Proving Grounds in Sweden is home to Polestar's development center, but its engineers looked far and wide in their quest to fine-tune the Polestar 2's chassis for real-world driving, the company revealed in a Tuesday press release.
Polestar has conducted testing in the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, China, Germany, Spain, and Swedan's arctic circle.
"Each of our testing environments allows us to refine specific elements of the car and in different ways," said Polestar lead chassis engineer Joakim Rydholm. "As we hone each element along the way, to create that magical Polestar feeling, it gets very exciting. And we don’t stop until we are totally satisfied."
"We wanted to create a car that people will really enjoy driving," Rydholm said. "As with Polestar 1, we spend time in many different environments around the world with Polestar 2, fine-tuning and testing lots of different chassis attributes—to find what we call 'the golden ride.' This is the moment when we as chassis engineers find the ultimate configuration, a perfect balance between dampers, brakes, tires, steering, and power delivery that gives us goose bumps."
The Polestar 2 is aimed squarely at Tesla's Model 3, with performance and range comparable to its AWD long-range variants. Electric motors front and rear combine to produce 408 horsepower and 487 pound-feet of torque. Polestar says it will do 0-60 mph in less than 5.0 seconds.
That grunt can be augmented by an available performance package, which includes Öhlins dampers, Brembo brakes, and 20-inch forged wheels. "With our Performance Pack set-up in Polestar 2, we don’t have over-complicated electronic suspension systems. Instead, we make the smallest adjustments to the Öhlins Dual Flow Valve dampers to find the sweet spot," Rydholm said.
Feeding those motors is a 78-kwh battery pack that could be good for as much as 275 miles of total range by EPA measurement. The Polestar 2 is expected to start at around $45,000, though the Launch Edition will debut at $63,000.
Rydholm, who is also responsible for the Polestar 1, says there are similarities in the way the two cars drive. That's only natural, he says, because Polestar has a philosophy and unique driving characteristics. Part of that philosophy is making the cars "feel alive and communicative but balanced and predictable."
While the Polestar 1 is already in production at Polestar's plant in Chengdu, China, the U.S. launch of the Polestar 2 is expected some time next year, with production for global markets starting early in the year. The Polestar 3 SUV will follow in 2022.
