Given Polestar‘s status as a relatively new car company, it can afford to be bold. The brand proved that with the Polestar 1, its jaw-dropping debut coupe that doesn’t get enough love if you ask me. It’s done it again with the Polestar 4, a 544-horsepower electric crossover that looks slick but… has no rear window. That’s cool, Polestar can do what it wants, but its sister company Volvo isn’t following suit.
Erik Severinson is the head of Volvo’s new car strategy. The Drive as much during a recent event in Sweden. When asked if the famously safe automaker would try something as bold as eliminating the rear window from its cars, Severinson turned down the notion of commenting on Polestar’s design direction. “I think they have reasons for doing that and they have obviously addressed the different questions you’re asking as well,” Severinson said.
“From our side we are quite confident,” he continued. “We have our cars today and the ones we have revealed so far, and we will always make sure we are fulfilling the brand identity of Volvo from a design perspective. And also, of course, all the safety aspects.”
Style can sometimes get in the middle of things. We’ve seen form obstruct function more and more lately in the automotive space—the Tesla Cybertruck and its sharp edges spring to mind. While it’s cool to see manufacturers break the mold, sometimes their most controversial products are hamstrung because of hubris.
There’s no way to spec a Polestar 4 with the back glass. To fill in the visibility hole, Polestar has fitted a camera facing the rear. Doing this provides a “spacious passenger environment” with an “extended panoramic roof,” which maybe sounds cooler than it is. Still, that’s Polestar’s reasoning for deleting the rear window.
It tracks that Volvo wouldn’t want to sacrifice practicality and, potentially, safety by following Polestar down the same path. Volvo is content to follow tradition in this sense. Severinson concluded, “The cars we have revealed so far have a rearview window if I put it that way. And we’re quite happy with the design we have in our vehicles.”
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