Dong Che Hui

2026-11-10 21:11

The Pole Star must have some special connection with November.

Today is November 10, 2026, the first anniversary of Polestar China’s official Weibo suspension.

And just today, Polestar officially released the new Formula 2030 concept car, which provides an advance preview of the brand's future design language, especially the next-generation Polestar 2 scheduled to be unveiled in 2027 and the SUV Polestar 7 launched in 2028.

Although in the current new energy vehicle market, Polestar has almost completely faded out of mainstream vision. But looking at the design alone, I have to say that the "polar star flavor" of this Formula 2030 is still unique.

Formula 2030, pointing the way for Polestar

Polestar, also known as the North Star, is the star that guides travelers in the night sky.

This Formula 2030 is a physical display of the brand’s forward-looking strategy for 2030. At the same time, this is also the first answer sheet handed over by Polestar’s new design director Philipp Römers after taking office.

Like previous Polestar models, Formula 2030 continues the sharp multi-angular crease design.

The iconic split double-edged headlights are retained, while an aerodynamic air duct is cleverly inserted into the middle of the split headlights.

Polestar’s unique body parameter “small print mark” also appears on the lower edge of the Formula 2030’s door.

But compared to the previous slightly gentle Polestar model, Formula 2030 looks more muscular. The length of the car of 4680mm and the width of the car of 2021mm, coupled with the obviously expanded front and rear wheel arches, give the entire car a very strong visual impression of a wide body spread out laterally.

At the same time, Formula 2030 is only 1350mm, which is lower than its own flagship GT coupe Polestar 5.

At the rear of the car, Formula 2030 adopts a safari shape. Like the recently released Porsche Mission S concept supercar, this time Polestar also abandoned the now-obsolete through-type taillights and replaced it with a neater single-edge split taillight design.

Officials have made it clear that this taillight element will be directly transferred to the mass-produced next-generation Polestar 2 and Polestar 7 in the future.

Polestar and Porsche can be said to represent the two major design trends of contemporary new energy vehicles. When these two brands invariably removed the through-light strips, this may represent a resurgence of certain design concepts. Maybe in the next few years, we will see the return of split taillights more often.

Moving to the side of the body, Formula 2030 adopts a double-door design without B-pillars, and accordingly the rear door is smaller than that of conventional models.

In order to further enhance the mechanical visual tension, Formula 2030 adopts a front and rear double clamshell hatch design. The front hatch is designed as a dedicated space secured by the roll cage crossbar, specifically used to house two racing helmets and an on-board fire extinguisher.

When you open the rear hatch, you can directly see the Öhlins rear shock absorber, which can be said to be a "belief bonus" detail specially arranged by Polestar.

There are many such details, such as the vertical single wiper that pays tribute to touring car racing, and the hidden lidar that can be lifted and lowered, etc., all reminding you of the high-performance genes of this car as much as possible.

Entering the cockpit, the most critical design of Formula 2030 is the eight customizable physical controls arranged below the central control screen.

This interactive solution, which Polestar calls "mechatronics," includes customizable levers and knobs that have both a retro and futuristic feel. We can also see that there is a corresponding screen above this set of physical levers to display relevant information.

Juan Pablo Bernal, head of interior design at Polestar, said:

As a performance brand, we have refocused our focus on the driver, so we are re-finding the balance between digital and physical. We introduced physical buttons and controls and believe we have achieved a "tactile harmony" that fits the brand's high-end positioning

In other words, Polestar believes that as a high-performance car, the sense of mechanical confirmation during blind operation cannot be replaced.

In order to match the driver's "atmosphere" in different scenarios, the physical structure of the entire interior will also dynamically deform according to the driving mode.

Through the sliding selector on the center tunnel, the vehicle can switch between three modes: "Performance", "Normal" and "Autonomous".

When switching to performance mode, the central control screen will sink downwards and be flush with the center island armrest, leaving the driver's sight clear and avoiding distracting driving energy. At the same time, the special-shaped steering wheel and the curved instrument panel directly fixed on the steering column will actively move closer to the driver's chest.

After switching to autonomous driving mode, the central control screen will be raised again to facilitate interaction, and the steering wheel and seats will be moved away to free up more ample seating space.

The four independent seats also have a built-in inflatable support system. The airbags can automatically inflate and deflate according to driving dynamics, and adjust the lateral wrapping and waist support of the body in real time.

In terms of details and materials, the iconic "Swedish Gold" seat belts are still not absent, echoing the Brembo gold brake calipers outside the car.

In addition, a large number of exposed native structural parts are retained in the car, and natural flax fiber composite materials are widely used. Polestar's iconic grid weave texture directly serves as the interior surface. Environmental protection is also one of Polestar's consistent design concepts.

Of course, you also know that Formula 2030 is a concept car after all. It has radical designs such as B-pillar-less double doors and a fully dynamic lifting cockpit. It is still unknown how many of them will reach the mass production line in the future.

But in this era of thousands of cars, it still makes people feel happy to see such a pure and pioneering design work.

Still aesthetic online, still stuck in the quagmire

Unfortunately, perfect design scores cannot make Polestar take the lead in the market.

Turn the time back to November 2021. At that time, with the global rollout of Polestar 2, Polestar's stock price hit an all-time high, as high as $492.3 per share.

Five years later, in November 2026, even after experiencing a joint stock market rescue and a slight rebound from the bottom, Polestar's stock price was still hovering in the range of less than $5 per share, and its market value had evaporated by nearly 99% from its peak.

It seems that just like Porsche, which has just stunned four-seaters with the Mission S, Polestar, which has led the way in pioneering design, is stuck in the market.

From the early Polestar 2 to the highly anticipated Polestar 4, to the extremely marginalized Polestar 3 in China, Polestar's situation in the Chinese market can almost be described as "a chicken feather in one place."

Looking back over the past few years, Polestar has had several rounds of senior management changes in China. It has tried a joint venture with Xingji Meizu to build local cars and even sell mobile phones, but in the end it failed to make a splash.

By October last year, Polestar closed its last directly-operated store in Qiantan, Shanghai. China's offline physical retail system was completely cleared and shifted to a state of pure online maintenance that was almost at a standstill.

The Polestar 2, once the main sedan, has struggled in the Chinese market for several years, with only about 5,000 units sold in total, and it was officially discontinued recently.

In China, the world's largest new energy vehicle market, Polestar faces too many fierce local rivals, and also has to face fellow "brothers" such as Polestar, Lynk & Co, and Volvo to share the cake.

Polestar, which has a similar supply chain and platform base, higher pricing, space and localized smart driving but not the ultimate, does not have enough formation and chips to open up the Chinese market.

In the overseas markets where it relies for survival, Polestar's life is also difficult to say.

In the first three quarters of 2026, Polestar's global cumulative retail sales were approximately 44,800 vehicles, a slight increase of only 0.6% year-on-year, and growth almost stagnated.

In North America, due to the impact of high tariffs and related bans, Polestar's sales in the United States have been hindered. It was forced to decide to stop selling new cars in the U.S. market starting from the 2027 model year. It is now rushing to clear the last batch of inventory.

After losing the two major incremental markets in China and the United States, Polestar today can only bet on sales in its European base camp.

In the first half of this year, Polestar's net loss was still as high as US$842 million. It relied on major shareholders Geely and Volvo to complete a "debt-for-equity" transfusion of approximately US$640 million in the middle of the year to extend its life. Just at the beginning of this month, Polestar also announced that it would postpone the release of its third-quarter financial report, further arousing people's concerns.

Viewed against this background, the 2030 strategy pointed to by the Formula 2030 concept car may be a bit uncertain.

The good news is that we can confirm that Polestar does not build "quick cars", but the bad news is that there are still more than three years until 2030, which is really difficult for the stretched Polestar.

Although officials said that the next-generation Polestar 2, which will inherit this new design language, will be launched in 2027, and the compact SUV Polestar 7 will also be launched in 2028, Polestar's overall product layout is still very thin.

However, facing the Formula 2030, which is launched today with a pioneering design, we still hope that Polestar can find a suitable customer group and survive this difficult period for the brand.

After all, in this increasingly homogeneous car-making era, good original designs really shouldn’t be buried.

Chen Shichen

car editor

Master, drive slower. I get carsick.

A total of 125 articles have been published

This article comes from the column

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