Polestar may have wowed the crowd at the Goodwood Festival of Speed by bringing the high-performance Polestar 1 to the event, but the company’s second model, the Polestar 2, made waves of its own. No, it didn’t make an appearance at the event — it’s still being developed — but Polestar COO Jonathan Goodman talked a great deal about it, including its performance capabilities, proposed timetable, and expected price tag. It’s safe to say, then, that the Polestar 2 will be much cheaper than the Polestar 1.

The Polestar 2 will be the company’s entry-level model. It’s the appetizer to the Polestar 1’s main course. As such, the company is setting its sights on the Tesla Model 3, which, in turn, explains why the sedan is going to be cheaper than the Polestar 1. According to Polestar COO Jonathan Goodman, the Polestar 2 will carry a price in the range of £30,000 to £50,000. That converts to around $39,400 to $65,500 based on current exchange rates. By comparison, Tesla’s price for the Model 3 sits somewhere in that range, though, at the moment, only Model 3s with long-range batteries are available at prices starting at about $64,000.

In addition to being priced close to its main rival, the Polestar 2 will also generate as much as 400 horsepower with range estimates going as high as 350 miles. That would give it more power and a longer range than the Model 3.

Obviously, the numbers Goodman is throwing out aren’t set in stone yet. But it does paint a picture on what Polestar’s plans are for the model. According to Goodman, the 350-mile range of the Polestar 2 “represents the lower ‘bookend’ of our showroom range and, for now, it should give us as much access to the volume end of the EV market as we need."

In terms of its design, the Polestar 2 is reportedly going to look a lot like the 40.2 Concept that the company revealed earlier this year. Design elements from the 40.1 Concept are also expected to be used, and we’ve seen what that could look when Volvo used some of the design goodies on the new XC40. That said, don’t expect the Polestar 2 to look like a futuristic concept that seems to have out straight from the pages of a sci-fi comic. The automaker scored big with the clean, classy, and sophisticated design of the Polestar 1, and it’s not going to go away from that formula in the name of shock value. “The global electric car market was worth four million units in 2017, but it’s quite widely expected to be worth 29 million units by 2025,” Goodman said. “EV owners will come from all walks of life. So it’s a mistake to assume that, because the cars are electric, you have to make them quirky or futuristic.”

However the development shakes out, it looks like we can at least look forward to a few things from the Polestar 2. It’s going to have power, performance, and a cheaper price tag than its flagship big brother. Oh, and it’s gunning for the Tesla Model 3, too. Let the battle begin…in a few years.

References

Read our full review on the 2018 Polestar 1.

Read our full review on the 2016 Volvo Concept 40.2