Polestar is a new car company, so it can afford to take chances. This was shown by the brand’s beautiful first car, the Polestar 1, which doesn’t get enough attention. It has done well again with the Polestar 4, an electric SUV with 544 horsepower. It has a nice look but no back window. It’s great that Polestar can do whatever it wants, but Volvo, its sister business, can’t. Invoice Pricing talked to Erik Severinson, Volvo’s head of new car planning, about this at an event in Sweden not long ago. When asked if Polestar, which is known for making safe cars, would do something as risky as removing the back windows, Severinson refused to discuss the company’s design strategy. Severinson said, “I think they have good reasons for taking that step, and they have clearly answered all of your questions.” He added, “From our side, we are quite confident.” We always design our automobiles, both the ones we’ve showed off and the ones we have now, stays true to the Volvo brand. Of course, safety needs to be thought about. Style choices can sometimes get in the way of the message. In the car industry, form has become more and more in the way of function. The Tesla Cybertruck, which has sharp edges, is one example. It’s sometimes interesting to see how creative people think outside the box, but as my coworker Maddox Kay points out, arrogance can stop them from making their most controversial works. You can’t order a Polestar 4 with a back window added. The brand adds a camera on the back to close the visual gap. This process creates an “extended panoramic roof” and a “spacious passenger environment,” which might look better than they really are. However, Polestar says that’s why they removed the back window. So it makes sense that Volvo wouldn’t want to do what Polestar did and risk making their cars less useful and even less safe. Volvo is happy to keep up the practice in this way. “The cars we’ve revealed so far have a rearview window, to put it that way,” said Severinson. And we’re really happy with how our cars are made.
