The Polestar 5 sedan is essentially the Swedish version of the Porsche Taycan. And we’ve already seen it go up the hill at Goodwood with promises of 884 horsepower. We now know how quickly it could, in theory, charge in the future. Again, theoretically.
Polestar recently completed a test with an early five prototype that saw its battery charge from 10 to 80 percent in just 10 minutes, adding 200 miles (320 kilometers) of range on a 77.0 kilowatt-hour battery. That’s faster than the production Taycan, which does it in about 18 minutes. However, the Taycan has a larger battery capacity of 105.0 kWh.
It should be noted that the car used a special battery produced by a company called StoreDot. This pack can also boost up to 100.0 kWh if needed. The DC fast charge rate was 310 kilowatts with the battery at 10 percent and actually increased to 370 kilowatts once charging was complete. But no average recharge rate was indicated.
“This is proof that we can now charge at these speeds in a standard car,” says Jens Groot, Polestar’s chief battery systems engineer. “We didn’t add anything new besides the battery. It still had the original cooling pump and fan.”
Polestar hasn’t said whether it plans to use StoreDot batteries in its future products, but it says this test provides insight into its “next-generation battery pack.” And the first results are promising. This is the first time a fully functional StoreDot battery has been used in an electric vehicle, so there’s still a lot we don’t know about how this battery might look over time.
Even if we don’t see StoreDot batteries by the time the Polestar 5 arrives, it’s possible we’ll see these packs on future Polestar products. The 5 sedan will debut with an 800-volt architecture with an estimated 103.0 kWh battery and a range of approximately 372 miles. It is expected to begin in production form by 2025 with an on-sale date later that year or in 2026. Pricing will be around $90,000 to start.
