The 871bhp Polestar 5 Is Here To Make The Taycan Nervous

Volvo may be well out of the business of making fast cars these days, but its sporty EV offshoot, Polestar, very much isn’t. It’s just revealed the production version of its fifth model, the, erm, 5 (never mind that we saw a near-identical undisguised prototype nearly two years ago), and it packs up to 871bhp.

This actually isn’t new news – we found out it’d be that powerful way back in 2022, when a camouflaged prototype was running around at Goodwood. It’s still worth stopping and thinking about, though. Eight hundred and seventy-two brake horsepower. That’s how much the infamously power-crazed Porsche Taycan Turbo is making when you activate launch control – in the Polestar, it’s available all the time.

To get that top power figure, as well as 749lb ft of torque, you’ll need the Performance version, which will rocket off to 62mph in a mere 3.2 seconds – half a second down on the Porsche, but still face-hurting. Arriving alongside it is a Launch Edition, which cuts the power and torque to a barely less sensible 737bhp and 599lb ft and hits 62mph in 3.9 seconds. Both topped out at an electronically-governed 155mph.

They’re both dual-motor setups with a hefty 106kWh usable battery capacity, good for a WLTP range of 416 miles in the Launch Edition and 351 miles in the hotter Performance. The 5 gets an 800V EV architecture for speedier charging, too – 10 to 80 per cent, says the brand, can take as little as 22 minutes on a rapid enough charger.

It sits on the brand’s new Polestar Performance Architecture, a bespoke bonded aluminium platform. Opt for the Performance and you get BWI MagneRide adaptive dampers, while the Launch Edition has passive dampers from the same company. The beefy four-pot Brembo brake callipers at the front are shared with the Polestar 3 SUV, but the new two-piece brake disc design on the 5 helps shed 12kg of unsprung mass.

There’s not a whole lot to say on the looks, given that we’ve already known what the 5 would look like for literal years, but it’s worth pointing out the lack of rear windscreen, as seems to be the Polestar way now. Drag coefficient is an extremely slippery 0.24, aided by things like pop-out door handles and flush glass.

Inside, Polestar calls the 5 a 4+1 (hey, that makes 5), which is code for ‘you probably don’t want to stick a grown-up in the middle rear seat’. Those in the back benefit from a quad-zone climate control system as well as a ‘foot garage’, a cut-out in the battery pack allowing rear passengers to slip their feet under the front seats.

Up front, meanwhile, it’s standard posh EV minimalism, with very few physical controls and a 14.5-inch portrait screen running an Android OS with built-in Google features. There are lots of right-on eco-friendly materials throughout the cabin, too, like the flax weave on the seatbacks, and the carpets made partially from old fishing nets.

Available to order now, the Launch Edition costs from £89,500, and the Performance £105,900. We imagine cheaper, potentially single-motor variants will arrive in due course, but in the meantime: this or a Taycan?