- The Polestar 7 is confirmed for production.
- It will be Polestar's first European-made model, sharing the platform with the Volvo EX60.
- The compact electric SUV will enter production in 2028.
Volvo will build the Polestar 7 compact electric SUV in Slovakia from 2028 onwards, the automaker announced on Thursday. The Polestar 7 will be the Swedish brand’s first model to be made in Europe and continue to exist alongside the brand's other offerings.
The Swedish automakers signed a memorandum of understanding to build the EV at Volvo’s upcoming plant in Kosice, Slovakia, which is expected to have an annual manufacturing capacity of 250,000 units. A next-gen Volvo EV will be made there first, followed by the Polestar 7.
Polestar, Volvo’s premium and performance-focused EV spinoff, has struggled to gain market traction. After disappointing sales and declining revenue, the company entered survival mode last year.
Following a management shakeup and a strategic reset, Polestar staged a strong comeback in the first quarter of this year, posting 76% year-over-year growth in global sales. Its current lineup includes the Polestar 2 crossover, the Polestar 3 SUV and the Polestar 4 coupe-crossover.
In the U.S., Polestar stopped taking orders for the Polestar 2 due to Trump’s tariffs—the EV is made at parent company Geely Group’s plant in China. In fact, most of Polestar’s models are made in China, although the Polestar 3 is now also assembled at Volvo’s South Carolina plant. And the Polestar 4 is made at Renault’s South Korea plant as well as in China.
The Slovakia factory will be Volvo’s third European plant. It will only make electric cars, the automaker said.
The Polestar 7 will ride on Volvo’s next-generation software-defined vehicle platform that it will also share with the upcoming EX60. The EX60 will be the electric alternative to Volvo’s best-selling XC60 SUV and will ride on the new SPA3 platform.
For the Polestar 7 as well as Volvo's newer models, the automaker will use giga casting, cell-to-body battery packs, and in-house developed motors. The Polestar 7 will also feature Volvo’s Superset software stack, which is basically a set of standardized modules, hardware and software.
It's a Tesla-like software-first approach, allowing the automaker to constantly upgrade its cars with over-the-air updates (OTA).
The EX60 is also confirmed to use Nvidia’s newest Drive Thor system on a chip (SoC) capable of 1,000 trillion operations per second. This type of data processing speed is required for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), which are expected to feature higher levels of autonomous driving features in the coming years, as the technology progresses.
Production is still years out, but the model is expected to launch in the U.S. by 2028. Building it in Slovakia will help Polestar avoid the steep tariffs that come with Chinese manufacturing.
Plus, Polestar will need a fresh, compelling model to stay relevant through the end of the decade, especially as nearly every major automaker prepares to launch new EVs built on next-generation platforms around that time frame.
Correction: The story previously misstated that the Polestar 7 is the successor to the Polestar 2. They're different body styles and will co-exist in the future. We regret the error.
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