Polestar has unveiled the fastest production vehicle it has ever made, the Polestar 4 SUV Coupe.
The SUV Coupe segment is easily one of the most unique on the market. While sleeker than a traditional SUV offering, these vehicles retain the higher ground clearance of their SUV siblings and often come with a laundry list of quirks. That is precisely the case with Polestar’s newest offering, the Polestar 4 SUV Coupe.
As stated above, the Polestar 4 retains the ground clearance of its Polestar 3 full-size SUV cousin. Still, its profile is more similar to its Polestar 2 sedan and Precept Concept vehicle siblings. Moreover, in following the trend of the segment, the Polestar 4 is chock-full of design quirkiness.
As noted by many an automotive journalist, the Polestar 4 lacks a rear window, instead opting for a system of cameras that provide the driver a complete view around the vehicle. Further, looking at the vehicle’s side, it has some of the most aggressively carved door panels on the market, second only to the Ford Mustang Mach-E, which has famously used the aggressive angularity between the wheels to “visually slim” the vehicle.
“With Polestar 4, we have taken a fundamental new approach to SUV coupé design,” says Thomas Ingenlath, Polestar CEO. “Rather than simply modifying an existing SUV, giving it a faster roofline and, as a result, compromising elements like rear headroom and comfort, we have designed Polestar 4 from the ground up as a new breed of SUV coupé that celebrates rear occupant comfort and experience.”
Moving on from Polestar’s intriguing design language, the Swedish automaker’s offering packs an impressive set of specs, backing the company’s statement; “our fastest production vehicle to date.” The Polestar 4 will be available in either dual-motor all-wheel-drive or single-motor rear-wheel-drive, and with its top trim (dual-motor), the SUV Coupe will rocket to 60mph in just 3.8 seconds. This rapid acceleration is made possible by 544 horsepower and 506 pound-feet of torque.
For those looking for the more tame single-motor option, the Polestar 4 provides an ample 272 horsepower and 253 pound-feet of torque.
Doubling down on its performance chops, the dual-motor equipped high-performance variant also comes with a “semi-active” suspension system, allowing the driver to tweak settings between performance and comfort.
The final option that buyers will choose from is between standard range or long range battery sizes. With the massive 102kWh battery, drivers can expect a max range of 335 miles with the dual motor variant or 373 miles with the single motor. Polestar has not yet released specifications for its standard range version but is expected to do so shortly, ahead ovehicle’sicle’s production launch in China.
The Polestar 4 will first be available in China during the fourth quarter of this year, while the rest of the world will need to wait until the first half of 2024. Polestar is beginning production of the vehicle in China but expects to expand production to other locations as it expands the regions it will sell in.
Besides the eye-watering performance metricsvehicle’sicle’s price may be the most surprising specification announced by Polestar today. Starting at $60,000 when it finally makes its way to the United States, or 60,000 Euros when it eventually becomes available across the pond, the Polestar 4 is quite aggressively priced, putting it essentially in line with the higher performance Tesla Model Y, Ford Mustang Mach-E, and significantly below larger offerings such as Polestar’s own 3 (full-size SUV), the Tesla Model X, or Rivian R1S.
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Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) closed at an all-time high on Tuesday, jumping over 3 percent during the day and finishing at $489.88.
The price beats the previous record close, which was $479.86.
Shares have had a crazy year, dipping more than 40 percent from the start of the year. The stock then started to recover once again around late April, when its price started to climb back up from the low $200 level.
This week, Tesla started to climb toward its highest levels ever, as it was revealed on Sunday that the company was testing driverless Robotaxis in Austin. The spike in value pushed the company’s valuation to $1.63 trillion.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
It is the seventh-most valuable company on the market currently, trailing Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.
Shares closed up $14.57 today, up over 3 percent.
The stock has gone through a lot this year, as previously mentioned. Shares tumbled in Q1 due to CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which pulled his attention away from his companies and left a major overhang on their valuations.
However, things started to rebound halfway through the year, and as the government started to phase out the $7,500 tax credit, demand spiked as consumers tried to take advantage of it.
Q3 deliveries were the highest in company history, and Tesla responded to the loss of the tax credit with the launch of the Model 3 and Model Y Standard.
Additionally, analysts have announced high expectations this week for the company on Wall Street as Robotaxi continues to be the focus. With autonomy within Tesla’s sights, things are moving in the direction of Robotaxi being a major catalyst for growth on the Street in the coming year.
Elon Musk
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs says.
Tesla is in the process of rolling out its Robotaxi platform to areas outside of Austin and the California Bay Area. It has plans to launch in five additional cities, including Houston, Dallas, Miami, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.
However, the company’s expansion is not what the focus needs to be, according to Delaney. It’s the speed of deployment.
The analyst said:
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Profitability will come as the Robotaxi fleet expands. Making that money will be dependent on when Tesla can initiate rides in more areas, giving more customers access to the program.
There are some additional things that the company needs to make happen ahead of the major Robotaxi expansion, one of those things is launching driverless rides in Austin, the first city in which it launched the program.
This week, Tesla started testing driverless Robotaxi rides in Austin, as two different Model Y units were spotted with no occupants, a huge step in the company’s plans for the ride-sharing platform.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
CEO Elon Musk has been hoping to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis in Austin for several months, first mentioning the plan to have them out by the end of 2025 in September. He confirmed on Sunday that Tesla had officially removed vehicle occupants and started testing truly unsupervised rides.
Although Safety Monitors in Austin have been sitting in the passenger’s seat, they have still had the ability to override things in case of an emergency. After all, the ultimate goal was safety and avoiding any accidents or injuries.
Goldman Sachs reiterated its ‘Neutral’ rating and its $400 price target. Delaney said, “Tesla is making progress with its autonomous technology,” and recent developments make it evident that this is true.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets bold Robotaxi prediction from Wall Street firm
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) received a bold Robotaxi prediction from Morgan Stanley, which anticipates a dramatic increase in the size of the company’s autonomous ride-hailing suite in the coming years.
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Percoco dug into the Robotaxi fleet and its expansion in the coming years in his latest note, released on Tuesday. The firm expects Tesla to increase the Robotaxi fleet size to 1,000 vehicles in 2026. However, that’s small-scale compared to what they expect from Tesla in a decade.
Tesla expands Robotaxi app access once again, this time on a global scale
By 2035, Morgan Stanley believes there will be one million Robotaxis on the road across multiple cities, a major jump and a considerable fleet size. We assume this means the fleet of vehicles Tesla will operate internally, and not including passenger-owned vehicles that could be added through software updates.
He also listed three specific catalysts that investors should pay attention to, as these will represent the company being on track to achieve its Robotaxi dreams:
- Opening Robotaxi to the public without a Safety Monitor. Timing is unclear, but it appears that Tesla is getting closer by the day.
- Improvement in safety metrics without the Safety Monitor. Tesla’s ability to improve its safety metrics as it scales miles driven without the Safety Monitor is imperative as it looks to scale in new states and cities in 2026.
- Cybercab start of production, targeted for April 2026. Tesla’s Cybercab is a purpose-built vehicle (no steering wheel or pedals, only two seats) that is expected to be produced through its state-of-the-art unboxed manufacturing process, offering further cost reductions and thus accelerating adoption over time.
Robotaxi stands to be one of Tesla’s most significant revenue contributors, especially as the company plans to continue expanding its ride-hailing service across the world in the coming years.
Its current deployment strategy is controlled and conservative to avoid any drastic and potentially program-ruining incidents.
So far, the program, which is active in Austin and the California Bay Area, has been widely successful.
Tesla stock closes at all-time high on heels of Robotaxi progress
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
