Now that Polestar is technically its own brand separate from Volvo, you may be wondering if its cars will meet the same ridiculously good safety standards that Volvo has come to be known for. Well the Polestar 1 crash test proves that yes, yes they do.
So far, Polestar has only released a short video of their own front collision test for the 600 horsepower hybrid Polestar 1 at the Volvo Car Group crash testing facilities in Gothenburg, Sweden. Check it out:
I know I’m framing this as Volvo’s standards moving up to the halo brand of Polestar, but the Polestar 1 and its extensive use of carbon fiber is actually a test bed of modern engineering and technologies, including the first carbon fiber reinforced polymer body that the Volvo Car Group hopes to filter down into more cars, Polestar and Volvo alike.
According to Polestar, the car was shot down a 157 meter track, or about 515 feet, and hit the wall at about 35 mph. The safety engineers were focused on testing if the carbon fiber body would react to the collision in the way they previously modeled.
Since carbon fiber shatters and cracks to dissipate energy instead of warp and bend like steel, the design approach to the front crumple zone had to be totally different.
Polestar claims most of the impact energy was absorbed by the designed crash structure, with the rest being mitigated and absorbed by the carbon body panels, which the company claims didn’t show signs of misalignment or warping. It doesn’t even look like the windshield cracked in the crash.
So that’s a success, at least for the frontal impact test. We’ll see how it fares in other testing. You can learn more about the Polestar 1's use of carbon fiber in the video below, including the body panels and a thing Polestar calls the “dragonfly,” which is a cross piece that reinforces part of the steel chassis.