Dubbed "100-in-5", it sees 100 miles (160 km) of range charged in just five minutes, can be integrated into battery pack formats that are already available, and does not need to rely on a battery pack design revolution.
At Polestar Day in Los Angeles on Nov 9, StoreDot’s XFC pouch cell charging demonstration was shown alongside Polestar’s prototype battery module that integrates XFC technology.
As part of the ongoing advanced engineering project, the two companies plan to demonstrate StoreDot’s XFC technology at full scale in a Polestar 5 prototype in 2024.
Polestar is an investor in StoreDot.
“StoreDot’s pioneering extreme fast charging batteries, combined with our upcoming top-of-the-line electric powertrain, can revolutionise the ownership experience for EV owners with the ability to recharge in minutes,” said Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath.
In a related development, Polestar said the manufacturing of Polestar 4 in Hangzhou Bay, China, would be complemented with manufacturing in Busan, South Korea, expected to start during the second half of 2025.
An agreement has been reached between Polestar, Geely Holding and Renault Korea Motors (RKM), that will bring contract manufacturing of Polestar 4 vehicles for the North American and domestic South Korean markets to RKM’s Busan plant.
RKM is a joint venture company owned by Renault, Geely Holdings and Samsung.
Located with direct access to exporting ports, the Busan plant has 23 years of experience in vehicle manufacturing and 2,000 employees.
The Busan plant aims to reduce its CO2 emissions by 50% by 2030, and to become carbon neutral by 2040, through a combination of energy efficiency improvements and the adoption of renewable energy sources.
Production of Polestar 4 set to start in Busan, South Korea, in 2025 .
Polestar’s asset-light approach to development and manufacturing enables it to benefit from the competence, flexibility and scalability of its partners and major shareholders, without needing to invest in its own facilities.
Announced in August, Polestar 4 is planned to be the first production car to feature Mobileye Chauffeur, now with Luminar LiDAR, which builds upon the full-surround camera-based SuperVision platform available in Polestar 4 from launch.
Together, the three companies aim to offer eyes-off, point-to-point autonomous driving on highways, as well as eyes-on automated driving for other environments.
With Mobileye Chauffeur, Polestar 4 is set to feature three Mobileye EyeQ6 processors, a front-facing LiDAR from Luminar, and Mobileye’s front-facing imaging radar to provide the extra layer of sensing and artificial intelligence needed to enable eyes-off, hands-off driving.
Polestar also announced a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) project here.
It is joining stakeholders in the electricity grid sector with a large-scale V2G project, funded by the Swedish Innovation Agency Vinnova and piloting a large fleet of Polestar 3 cars.
Together with Swedish National Grid authority Svenska kraftnät, local grid owner Göteborg Energi Nät, regional energy distributor Vattenfall Eldistribution, home charging provider Easee, and research partner Chalmers University of Technology, Polestar aims to find potential business models for V2G and trial tangible use cases that can be scalable and applicable across regions.
At the same time, Polestar is forming a collaboration with the California Energy Commission and the independent, non-profit energy R&D institute EPRI, on a pre-study – also funded by Vinnova – to create a roadmap for the implementation of vehicle-to-grid services in California.
Bidirectional charging technology allows Polestar 3 cars to not only charge but also discharge energy from their batteries back to the individual home or the electricity grid. To help manage V2G integration, Polestar is developing a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) that links all participating Polestar 3 cars connected to the grid. The cloud based VPP calculates the collective capacity of connected batteries and initiates charging or discharging based on grid demand and battery longevity optimisation.
This will allow car owners to both contribute to the energy transition and monetise their EV while it’s parked, without any intervention.
The owner simply plugs in their vehicle and the VPP and smart charging tech will do the rest – optimising battery use for their transport needs and support the grid.
EV batteries have the potential to be useful on a large scale. With V2G solutions, EVs have the potential to become an important flexible energy resource and support electricity grids, beyond already being a means for more sustainable transportation.
