Watch Polestar Unveil Its Model Y Competitor Here On CleanTechnica

Volvo’s fully electric startup Polestar is set to reveal its second entry into the fully electric vehicle race tomorrow, February 27, at 13:00 CET / 7:00 EST / 4:00 PST. The event will be televised, or at least livestreamed, via a webcast that we have conveniently embedded at the bottom of this article. Go ahead, skip on down without reading the rest, we won’t judge you.

The startup opted for a digital, online-only reveal event to minimize the carbon emissions generated by flying in a host of media, investors, and the like from around the world. The upshot of that is that we all get to watch the event as it is unfolding in realtime. Credentials be damned, Polestar is blowing open the gates for the webcast for everyone to watch as it happens.

To prove that it’s not just computer graphics and vaporware, Polestar will bring its second model out into the light a few days later at the Geneva International Motor Show in early March, for everyone there to take in face to face.

Early indicators hinted at the Polestar 2 coming into the hot CUV or small SUV class with a form factor that is built on the Volvo 40.2 prototype. Depending on when Polestar actually brings the car to market, it could be some of the first real competition for the Model Y, depending of course on when Tesla brings the Model Y to market. It is slated to fit into the same slice of the market as the Model Y, with a price ranging from $40,000 to $60,000, depending on the configuration.

The Polestar 2 and sibling Polestar 1 are the first entrants into the luxury electric vehicle market for parent company Volvo, lineup leaders as the brand works to convert its whole lineup to “electrified” vehicles. A host of fully battery electric vehicles will be over on the Polestar side of the house. The Polestar 1 looks a lot like a two-door version of a Tesla Model S with a healthy dose of European styling sprinkled on top to keep it in the family. The inclusion of a grille up front is a bit curious, and it remains one of the design features that we hope doesn’t make it into the production version. #NoMoreGrilles

Volvo is also using the new Polestar brand to transition production out of Sweden, to a new facility that is being built in Chengdu, China. The Polestar Production Center will not only be close to battery suppliers, but also lands squarely in the automotive market that is most aggressively pursuing the transition to electric vehicles.

China has made no secret of its plans to convert vehicles over to electrified transit, with a mandate that 10% of all vehicles produced in the country be electric (well, sort of — the scoring is not one-to-one in the real world). On the consumer side, healthy incentives make driving electric not only the future-focused option, but a lower cost option in many cases as well.