- Polestar 2 successor 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 is the successor of the Polestar 2, and it will be the Swedish brand’s first model to be made in Europe.
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.
Volvo will build the Polestar 7 at its Kosice, Slovakia plant.
Photo by: Volvo
Polestar, Volvo’s premium and performance-focused EV spinoff, has struggled to gain traction in the market. 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 and also in China.
The Slovakia factory will be Volvo’s third European plant, and it will only make electric cars, the automaker said.
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.
Photo by: Polestar
Volvo will use advanced manufacturing techniques such as giga casting, cell-to-body battery pack 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.
This is a very Tesla-like software-first approach, allowing the automaker to constantly upgrade their 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 trillions of 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.
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. Although the brand will need a fresh, compelling model to stay relevant through the end of the decade, especially as nearly every major automaker prepares to flood the market with EVs built on next-generation platforms around that time frame.
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