This week, Swedish electric performance brand Polestar raised the roof on electric sports cars, by taking the roof off. Meet the all-new Polestar O2 “promise” car.
When you think of lightweight, nimble, and deceptively fast sportscars, you probably think of something like a Lotus Elise or Exige. These days, though, sedans with powerful, high-torque electric motors are the new drag strip kings – but what if you could combine the best of both worlds to deliver something that’s on another level entirely? Sound like a recipe for a Tesla Roadster? It might, but this is no Tesla. Meet the new Polestar O2 concept, and get hyped: a new golden age of sportscars is coming!
“Polestar O2 is the hero car for our brand,” comments Thomas Ingenlath, Polestar CEO. “It opens the door to our secret chamber of future potential. This is a taste of what we can design and engineer with the talent and technology we have in-house. It looks incredible, and being able to lower the roof and not hear an engine promises a superb sensation.”
The Polestar O2 digs deep into parent company Geely’s intellectual parts bin, with a lightweight, bonded-aluminum chassis similar in concept to the chassis that’s underpinned the most recent Lotus exotic cars – and, while we’re at it, the first Tesla Roadster, as well. And, yes, this is “just a concept” and a lot of the images in the official press release are CGI – but did you miss the part where Polestar said it didn’t build concept cars, it builds promise cars? We didn’t!
What’s more, with Polestar’s plan to be “bigger than Porsche” one day, it makes sense for the pure play electric performance car brand to reach into the corporate parts bin and compete with the Boxster/Cayman twins head-to-head, don’t you think?
Polestar O2 Aluminum Chassis
That up there? That seems pretty thoroughly conceived for something that’s “just a concept”. And, sure, it may be little more than a lightly modified Lotus project with Swedish styling tweaks and electric drivetrain in place, but would that be such a bad thing?
Lotus handling, Volvo levels of safety, Polestar’s commitment to environmental friendliness, and Geely’s economies of scale (potentially) holding prices down to something not totally out of reach? I’m going to have to calm down here – let’s look at some more pictures of this thing …
… yeah, that’s not helping. If anything, we’re getting even more excited to check out the Polestar O2 in person, if and when it ever makes its way Stateside.
We’ll leave it to you guys to make up your own minds about this new open-top roadster. Check out the official gallery, above, watch the video, below, and let us know what you think of this awesome concept roadster in the comments section at the bottom of the page. Enjoy!
Introducing O2
SOURCE | IMAGES: POLESTAR.
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