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