408-HP Polestar 2 Electric Sedan Expected to Drop in Late Summer for $59,900
The Tesla Model 3 competitor puts a different spin on battery-powered daily driving.
The Polestar 2 electric car is nearly ready for primetime as a late-summer arrival is predicted for the sporty zero-emissions sedan. The Volvo subsidiary has already started building production models and customers can already place a deposit to buy one online. It wasn't announced until now, though, that the Polestar will cost $59,900—squarely in between the Tesla Model 3 and Model S.
Polestar originally unveiled the car over a year ago, alongside the sleek Polestar 1 coupe. As expected, the near-$60k price tag buys a car with 408 horsepower, all-wheel-drive, a 78-kilowatt-hour battery, and a host of other luxury equipment like a panoramic sunroof and a premium Dirac audio system. Buyers wanting leather upholstery will have to shell out an additional $4,000, and another $1,200 to upgrade to 20-inch alloy wheels.
It'll also be the first vehicle to utilize Google's Android platform for its infotainment system.
Importantly, the Polestar 2 will be nearly two grand cheaper than once expected. Polestar made the decision to slash the starting price in order to make the sedan eligible for more tax incentives in states like New York and California.
The all-new EV is a shot across Tesla’s bow in several ways, including pricing and features. While the Polestar's starting MSRP is in the middle of Tesla's two sedans, its battery packs should help it encroach on the EV-maker's numbers with around 275 miles of range. That's not quite as high as the Model 3 Long Range's 322-mile figure, though it's better than the Standard Range Plus variant's 250-mile mark.
Polestar, jointly owned by Volvo and Chinese company Geely, began producing the car in China last month. Production lines everywhere have been shuttered because of the dangerous coronavirus pandemic, but some factories in China have been able to ramp back up as the worst of the virus' spread appears to have passed for the country.
Polestar says that the 2 will be sold in Europe first, with China and North America following, and that it will open its first retail showrooms in New York and on the West Coast in late summer of this year.
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