- The Polestar 7 will be the brand’s compact SUV replacement, of sorts, for the Polestar 2 sedan.
- Polestar is owned by China’s Geely Group, which builds many different cars on versions of the same platforms worldwide. One common architecture can be found with Zeekr and Volvo as well.
- Could the Polestar 7 emulate the Volvo EX30 and Zeekr X? We’ll soon see.
The Polestar 2 has consistently been one of our favorite electric vehicles on the market. There’s only one big problem with it: it’s a sedan doing battle in an SUV-centric world. As good as it may be, it could only take the electric startup brand so far when people want bigger cars to haul kids and gear.
Actually, it has one other problem: it is built in China. That was fine for the Polestar 2 a few years ago when it launched, but these days, anti-China protectionist tariffs are all the rage in the U.S. and Europe. But today we learned that the upcoming Polestar 7 aims to solve both problems. It will be a compact electric crossover SUV, and built in Europe to avoid any of that tariff unpleasantness.
But while Polestar announced the Polestar 7 in its 2025 Business and Strategy Update video, it offered almost no details about the car at all—including from the company’s new chief designer. However, we can look to the rest of the Geely Group family for clues as to what it could be.
Photo by: Ralph Hermens
The rendering you see here is based on the Zeekr X, from another Geely Group EV and hybrid brand that we’ve covered extensively. And if that silhouette looks familiar, it’s because the Zeekr X is closely related to the Volvo EX30, another compact crossover that’s just now making it to U.S. shores.
Now, Zeekr’s cars are currently manufactured in China, which keeps it from coming to America for now. And after getting delayed by U.S. tariffs, the also-China-built EX30 now may face an uncertain future with a looming ban on Chinese car technology. But Volvo is moving fast to fix the latter issue; the EX30 will be built in Ghent, Belgium later this year, and that version of the car should be exported here.
All of this is to say that if Polestar is aiming to build a compact, performance-focused crossover in the Polestar 7, the EX30 and Zeekr X’s SEA-2 platform could be a great contender for it.
And the specs are already pretty legitimate. In U.S. form, Single Motor Extended Range Volvo EX30 has 268 horsepower and 253 lb-ft of torque with a range of 275 miles. The Twin Motor Performance has 422 hp and 400 lb-ft of torque and up to 253 miles of range. (Only the latter is being sold here right now, after the former was punted down the road due to tariffs.) In WLTP specs, the Zeekr X models are capable of at least 300 miles of range. The biggest battery in all of them is a 69 kWh NCM lithium-ion unit.
Photo by: InsideEVs
Photo by: InsideEVs
Hopefully—and if my theory is right—our Polestar 7 would be capable of at least 300 miles of range too, as that’s increasingly feeling like table stakes these days. But the Geely Group is also using this same platform for the Smart 1 and Smart 3, as well as the new Lynk & Co Z20. I would be quite surprised if Polestar didn’t go this route as well. All of these cars even look fairly similar inside: big screen, very few buttons and physical switches, and a big emphasis on software.
Photo by: InsideEVs
One of the only things we do know is that while Polestar–and the wider Geely Group—use many different vehicle platforms for now, the plan is to increasingly unify its hardware.
“Reinforcing the value of Polestar’s asset-light business model, Polestar 7 is planned to be manufactured in Europe,” Polestar officials said in a news release. “With production already in place in the U.S., South Korea and China, Polestar continues to strengthen its global position with a well-balanced international manufacturing network. Over time, from Polestar 7 onwards, the Company will gradually move from a multi-platform approach to one single architecture, reducing complexity, costs, and investments.”
Regardless of how it goes down, Geely clearly has a lot to draw from. And as I experienced at CES sitting in the Zeekr 001, these cars seem very promising. Polestar may be coming off a rough year of sales and finances in 2024, but if it can get its own spin on cars like the Zeekr X and Volvo EX30, it should be in much better shape long-term.
Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com
