The Volvo Polestar brand is gaining momentum. Polestar was announced as the Swedish firm’s electric sub-brand. Polestar 1 was the very first model to carry the new badge. You read all about that car and spec your own Polestar 1 here.

This sleek coupe made its dynamic debut at the recent Goodwood Festival of Speed. You can see the 450 kW/1 000 Nm model zoom up the famous hill climb course in the video below

More models in the pipeline

Polestar 1 was meant to be the dramatic halo model to help generate headlines. As only 500 a year are scheduled to be produced, Volvo needs to look elsewhere to bolster sales; enter Polestar 2.

The smaller model will be based in the 40.2 showcar (as seen in the images above). Speaking at Volvo’s headquarters, Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath confirmed the Polestar 2 will be built on an electrified version of Volvo’s new Compact Modular Architecture (CMA). That’s the same platform that underpins the company’s new XC40 crossover and will form the basis of other new small models from Volvo.

Click here to read out Volvo XC40 review.

Details

Volvo is said to be preparing Polestar 2 for a mid-2019 launch, roughly a year from now. The timing means that we could see a ‘concept’ model as early as the Geneva Motor Show.

The new model is said to have a range of 560 km and will compete with the likes of Tesla’s Model 3. Speaking to journalists at Goodwood Jonathan Goodman, COO of Polestar said: “That will represent the lower ‘bookend’ of our showroom range and, for now, it should give us as much access to the volume end of the EV market as we need.”

Soon after its launch, the mid-size Polestar 2 will be joined by a large SUV dubbed Polestar 3. The latter will be based on the same platform as the larger 90 series cars from Volvo.