The development of the Polestar 1 has gathered pace with production of the first series of road-going verification prototype (VP) cars in Sweden. The 34 mules will be used for a number of purposes including crash tests, weather testing and on-road assessment, and form the very first fleet of Polestar 1 cars on the road.
Construction of the prototype cars, which takes place in a specialized prototype production facility in Gothenburg, is largely done by hand. This will be the first testing phase of the Polestar 1, which will then be built at the new Polestar production center in Chengdu, China.
The carbon-fiber body of the Polestar 1 required development of new, specialist manufacturing equipment and construction techniques that will be transferred to the factory and used to build the production cars.
“The assembly of the VP cars signifies the next step toward production. This first batch of 34 cars will enable our engineers to tune the finer details of the car, ensuring that the Polestar 1 is perfect when we begin producing customer cars in the middle of next year,” said Thomas Ingenlath, CEO of Polestar.
The Polestar 1 is the first time that a brand in the Volvo Car Group has explored carbon-fiber construction. The VP cars have been used to design, test and execute complicated construction processes.
