The covers were only just taken off the brand new Volvo S90 luxury sedan and already, it has emerged that it, along with the upcoming V90 estate, will be offered in high-performance guises with Polestar badging.
The Volvo S90 has been created to rival the likes of the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, Audi A6, BMW 5-Series and Jaguar XF, all of which are available with high-performance variants.
Following the acquisition of Polestar by Volvo recently, the boss of the Swedish automaker expressed his desire to expand Polestar’s road offerings.
Discussing the potential of S90 and V90 Polestar’s with Autocar, Hakan Samuelsson said “You could have a high-performance variant [of the S90] without leaving the brand. You could still have a nice car with smart design and functionality, but what’s wrong with a little performance?
“Right now we have the S60 and V60 as Polestar variants, and we believe in the [Polestar] brand – that’s why we bought it. So now we’re looking at using it more on performance cars within the family”, he added.
At this stage, nothing has been confirmed about how Volvo and Polestar will improve the performance of the S90 and V90. That being said, both Samuelsson and the company’s R&D chief Peter Mertens revealed that hybrid powertrains are the future for Polestar, so it’s very likely the hardcore S90 and V90 variants will utilize a powerful hybrid powertrain.
The ‘standard’ Volvo S90 has already been revealed with a plug-in hybrid powertrain in the form of the S90 T8 Twin Engine. It combines a four-cylinder turbocharged and supercharged engine with an 80 hp electric motor and a 46 hp starter generator. There’s a potential the Polestar model would use an upgraded version of this powertrain, though there’s always the possibility of a completely new system.
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