Are Hansen of Norway is an active member of the CleanTechnica community. A few days ago, he was walking through a part of Oslo that features many upscale shopping locations and spotted something unusual. So he snapped some photos and forwarded then to us, along with a news report from Norwegian news source ABC Nyheter.
Photo courtesy Are Hansen
Photo courtesy Are Hansen
The report from ABC Nyheter says the Øvre Slottsgate location is where many exclusive shops are located, a tactic employed quite successfully by another electric car company you may have heard about, Tesla. The Oslo store, which Polestar calls a “Space,” is scheduled to open its doors in October. At least three other Polestar Spaces are planned for other Norwegian cities, like Stavanger, Bergen, and Trondheim.
Polestar head Thomas Ingenlath explains why Norway is first out. “The choice of location falls naturally as Norway is one of the most developed markets for electric cars. The store marks the start of a global network that will comprise about 60 such showrooms until mid-2020. There will also be more in Norway.”
Ready for some history? Polestar began as a private tuning company for Volvo products much the way AMG was originally a tuning specialist for Mercedes. The operation was so successful that Volvo bought Polestar outright. Later, the company decided to turn it into a separate brand for electric cars.
Its first car, the Polestar 1, is a svelte all-electric coupe with a stratospheric price but woefully short range. It has stunning performance and drop-dead gorgeous looks, but the fun only lasts for about 100 miles thanks to its small 34 kWh battery. The Polestar 1 is supposed to be the halo car, the one that gets heads turning and tongues wagging the same way the original Tesla Roadster did. It is limited to 500 cars a year and prices start at €155,000.
Polestar 2 courtesy Polestar.
The Polestar 2 is the much more modestly priced 5 door sedan that is positioned to challenge both Tesla and the German luxury brands. As Kyle Field wrote earlier this year, “The Polestar 2 carries forward most of the core components of what has made Tesla so successful to date, with a healthy dose of Scandinavian design sensibility, quality, and safety. The rear of the vehicle leaves no question about where the vehicle was designed, though it may come as a surprise that it will be manufactured in China.”
When the Polestar Space opens in Oslo next month, it is the Polestar 2 that most shoppers will be coming in to see.
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