Polestar electric R&D centre announced for UK

Polestar is to establish an electric-car research and development (R&D) centre in Coventry, the company has announced.

The Volvo spin-off brand – which already offers the Polestar 1 plug-in hybrid coupe and will shortly launch the fully electric Polestar 2 coupe SUV – is to employ 60 engineers at the new site.

Polestar says the centre will support the development of future models beyond the forthcoming Polestar 3.  

"Investing in the automotive engineering talent that the UK has to offer will strengthen our capabilities,” said Thomas Ingenlath, Polestar CEO.

Hans Pehrson, responsible for R&D at Polestar, added: “Polestar’s role as a technology spearhead requires new and developing skills in low-volume, lightweight, multi-material performance car engineering, and the new UK operation will allow us to take the next steps towards our future cars.

“The team that will kickstart the new UK R&D subsidiary is already well versed in Polestar engineering philosophy, and we will expand the initial team further during the course of 2019.

"These engineers will be a great complement to our existing R&D team based in Sweden, and other supporting teams around the world.”