In 30 years, Geely has gone from making fridges to selling over 400,000 cars a year under its own name, has paid Ford $1.8 billion to buy Volvo (in 2010) and, more recently, acquired a 51 per cent stake in Lotus. And now it is separating the Polestar tuning arm from Volvo to create a standalone, EV-focused performance brand. Its first product, the Polestar 1 (above), is a 911-sized, 592bhp hybrid GT, to be followed by a range of performance-orientated EVs and hybrids to be built in China and leased globally via an online sales portal: you will only ever lease a Polestar EV, never own one.
Geely also holds the key to the future of Lotus and thus the next Elise. Having steered Lotus to profitability and managed the company’s product on a shoestring since replacing Dany Bahar as Lotus CEO, Jean-Marc Gales knows exactly what is expected of him now the company he lives and breathes has the security, resource and future he has been so focused on achieving since he relocated to Hethel from Peugeot in 2014.
Global Geely isn’t a name that has often appeared in evo, nor are products under its own name ever likely to. However, the Chinese giant now holds the future of one of the world’s most famous sports car brands in one hand while launching an electric car company with performance at the top of its agenda with the other. In the following pages we take a close look at the Polestar 1 and talk to Gales about what Geely means for Lotus. Because, for people like us, Geely suddenly matters.
Tree bespoke models, one with 592bhp and 999Nm, over 145 kilometres of pure electric range, Öhlins dampers, a carbonfibre body, and a sales model that will see you subscribe rather than own the car outright… Polestar, recently freed to forge its own brand identity within the Volvo Group, isn’t letting the established methods of running a car company shape its ideas or its ambitions. Volvo’s stated aim is to be a leader in electric car production, with a target of selling 1 million by 2025 and with all new cars built post-2019 to be either electric or plug-in hybrids. And Polestar will play a significant role in this strategy.
Up until now, Polestar has been the performance tuning arm of Volvo, providing upgrades to various models, including the V40 featured on page 45 and the 362bhp S60 and V60 models. Now it’s a standalone brand within Volvo, with deliveries of its first model, the Polestar 1, due to start in 2019, followed by a Tesla 3-rivalling Polestar 2 and a performance SUV in 2020. Future models beyond this inaugural trio will offer either full electric or performance-orientated hybrid powertrains.
If the Polestar 1 looks familiar, that’s because it first appeared in 2015 at the Frankfurt motor show as the Concept Coupe. The positive reaction to it, followed by a successful drive of a prototype by top brass, sparked the decision to establish Polestar as a separate entity and to launch with the production version of the concept, the 2+2 GT you see here. Built on a shortened version of Volvo’s ‘scalable platform architecture’ first used for the S/V90, the GT has a 320mm cut in the wheelbase, with a further 200mm taken from the rear overhang. At 4.5 metres, it’s the same length as a current 911. Not only does the Polestar 1 measure up to a 911 physically, but it also has on-paper performance to match. It features twin electric motors on the rear axle, powered by a 34kWh battery producing 218bhp. In pure EV mode, the Polestar 1 is a rear- drive coupe with a range of up to 160km and a projected 4.0sec 0-100kmph time.
But it isn’t a pure EV: at the front – and driving the front wheels – is a 374bhp, 2-litre turbocharged and supercharged four-cylinder petrol engine as currently found in Volvo’s S/V60 Polestar models. When the superunleaded-fuelled motor teams up with the sparks department, the combined 592bhp and 999Nm represent Ferrari 458 Speciale levels of power matched to Pagani Huayra torque.
The chassis features an Öhlins-developed continuously controlled electronic suspension (CESi) system. Using traditional dampers but fitted with electronic valves, the system continuously monitors driver inputs and the condition of the road surface and adapts within two milliseconds. Alternatively, the driver can adjust damper settings to suit their own requirements. The Polestar 1 will also be the first Volvo Group product to feature torque-vectoring on the rear axle. And, as it has for the car’s suspension, Polestar has also turned to a third-party specialist for its first car’s brakes. Akebono has designed, developed and a produced the six-piston calipers and 400mm discs.
Despite the new company and new brand values, the Polestar 1 still has an unmistakable Volvo look to it; those of you old enough to remember it may even spot a hint of Peter Horbury’s late-1990s C70 coupe in there. Where this GT differs is in its body construction. Use of carbonfibre reduces the weight by 230kg compared with an S90, says Polestar, although the electric motors and battery pack add the equivalent weight straight back on. Torsional stiffness is said to be up by 45 per cent compared with a steel body, however.
The plan is to build 500 Polestar 1s each year in a new production centre in Chengdu in south-western China, and while the car will be available in the UK it will only be supplied as a left-hand drive model (manufacturing costs are said to be too high to offer both left- and right-hand-drive options). Polestar won’t technically sell you one of its cars; if it did the retail price for a 1 would be expected to be in the region of `1.1 crore (in the UK, excluding Indian taxes and duties). Instead, buyers will subscribe to a type of leasing scheme over two or three years. The all-inclusive, deposit-free scheme will deliver you a Polestar 1 for your use, fully insured and maintained for the length of the lease, for a flat monthly fee.
The Polestar 1 is an ambitious debut model, but while the technical specification wants for nothing, in the carbonfibre it’s very much a GT rather than a sports car. Which is no bad thing in itself, but both Geely’s investment and ambitions will need to lead to more overtly performance-orientated models if Polestar is to be considered in the same way that AMG is to Mercedes. And to achieve that, perhaps the latest member of the Geely family will have a part to play…
Has lotus finally secured its future?
Investment by Geely will mean a new Elise – and the tantalising possibility of a hybrid Esprit supercar
At the end of September, Chinese automotive giant Geely purchased a 49 per cent share of Proton, in the process acquiring a 51 per cent stake in Lotus Cars and expanding yet further a brand portfolio that already includes Volvo and a now-independent Polestar – as you’ve just been reading all about on the preceding pages. This is clearly a pivotal moment for the British sports car maker.
‘I am now drawing up the business plan – it is a busy time,’ says Lotus CEO Jean-Marc Gales when we meet in his office at Hethel. This quietly but rapidly spoken CEO, who exudes an infectious passion for this great brand, now has the enviable task of plotting the company’s future course with the knowledge that funds are there to make it a reality.
That’s not to say that Geely throws cash around with abandon, but it has proved that it is both willing to invest considerably and also allow a brand to follow a bold new vision, and it’s now reaping the benefits with a strongly resurgent Volvo. Its equally bold strategy with Polestar is further evidence that it’s not afraid to strike out against the traditional flow of the car business. Statements emanating from its Hangzhou HQ point to Geely senior management having both enthusiasm and high expectations for its latest acquisition, with no intention of leaving it as a sports car minnow nestled in the Norfolk countryside.
But wait, I hear you say; we’ve read about a Lotus renaissance numerous times in the pages of car magazines over the years. Why should this occasion be any different? There are a number of reasons why this time really is different. Among them, firstly, is that Lotus is in a much better financial position now than it has been for a long time. Sales are small but on the rise – up ten per cent so far this year – and Gales’ mission to cut wastage, both in production terms and in the component make-up of the cars, has paid dividends. Lotus may be concentrating on highly profitable limited-run machinery, but it’s building cars that customers are clamouring to buy.
Secondly, have you driven a Lotus lately? Take the Evora GT430 – a car almost unrecognisable from the original Evora launched nearly ten years ago. Not just in the performance on offer – at a price, granted – but in the way it’s screwed, and glued, together, the quality of the materials used inside and out, and the design and execution of those all-important details. The old jibes about Lotus quality will take a long time to fade away, but, in our experience, they’re as hollow and outdated now as a similar gag about Skoda.
So what next in product terms? In the near future, expect a continuation of the highly focused limited-run models that have so far characterised Gales-era Lotus. Looking further ahead there will be an all-new Elise, about which we can’t wait to learn more, but there will also – almost inevitably – be new types of vehicles. Which raises the potentially thorny subject of Lotus building a Cayenne rival.
Gales is tight-lipped on the subject, saying only that any new vehicle the company makes must be ‘a true Lotus’, but it’s doubtful he can ignore the inexorable rise in demand for SUVs. Porsche succeeded by staking out its own territory within the SUV segment, and which it has largely retained despite attempts by others to muscle in. What chance a ‘lightweight’ SUV with hybrid or electric power sourced from Polestar? And what chance, too, a sports saloon, or a hot hatch?
Perhaps most tantalisingly of all, the planets suddenly seem curiously aligned for the reappearance, at long last, of the new Esprit supercar that we’ve been dreaming about for decades. For so long powered by a turbocharged four-cylinder engine, any spiritual successor could major on Lotus’s weight reduction expertise and use the twin- or prototype triple-charged four-cylinder 2-litre Volvo T6 four-pot, combined with Lotus/Polestar electric battery technology for 600bhp-plus. Fascinating times ahead.