Polestar 7: Small Polestar 2 successor, big number

Polestar has revealed it will take a similar approach to its model naming – but, where Peugeot’s model lines helped to create a hierarchy through by establishing a fixed first number in a three-digit name where only the final name ever changed, Polestar won’t link size or price to its model numbers. Its model naming method will be purely chronological.

This means that while an increasing number of brands use alphanumericals to help buyers understand a model’s dimensions, position and purpose with only the slightest familiarity, a Polestar 12 could be anything from a large SUV to a third-generation successor to the original Polestar 2 – depending on life cycles and whether any other new body styles join the range in the interim.

Review

More than a mild mid-life update, this is what the Polestar 2 should’ve been from the start

8.5 / 10 Score

The 7 may end up being larger than the 2, however, with the 2’s compact interior limiting its appeal and sales potential as a price rival to the more capacious Tesla Model 3. Indeed, Ingenlath sees Polestar’s approach to model naming as a clever way of avoiding the “trap” of market expectations of what a familiar badge should represent in size, design and price.

“As much as we might build a very similar car, because it has a different number we won’t have this natural trap where we’re boxed into that concept of what the car had been,” he said.

“As nice as it is to have a ‘Golf’ category of car, it’s very limiting in terms of innovative power, because you’re always back in the box of what the ‘Golf’ should be.”

News

Pricing and specifications confirmed by Polestar as new 4 goes on-sale

For now, we can be sure that the Polestar 7 will be switch from the 2’s petrol- and diesel-shared CMA platform from Volvo, to a version of the EV-focused SEA platform that underpins the new Polestar 4 – an architecture again developed primarily by Volvo, but for all Geely group members.

The Polestar 7 is expected to enter European production in 2027 – seven years after the 2 rollout began – but it remains to be seen if Australia’s 7 will come from there or from China.

Perhaps the biggest question is whether it will have a rear window – or if,