Volvo’s Polestar Creates R&D Center in U.K.

Polestar creates an R&D center in the U.K. to strengthen the brand’s ability to engineer its future electric performance vehicles.

The facility in Coventry, 105 miles (169 km) north of London, initially will employ about 60 engineers who will support the development of future Polestar cars beyond the Polestar 3 coupe-style SUV due out in 2021.

Polestar is Volvo Cars’ electric-car performance brand, based in Gothenburg, Sweden.

CEO Thomas Ingenlath says the engineers already have been involved in preliminary development work and now will be fully immersed into future Polestar car projects as part of the global Polestar engineering network.

“Investing in the automotive engineering talent that the U.K. has to offer will strengthen our capabilities,” Ingenlath says in a statement.

Hans Pehrson, responsible for R&D, says Polestar’s role as a technology spearhead requires new and developing skills in low-volume, lightweight, multi-material performance-car engineering.

“The team that will kick-start the new U.K. R&D subsidiary is already well-versed in Polestar engineering philosophy, and we will expand the initial team further during the course of 2019,” Pehrson says.