Volvo's Polestar 2 Promises To Be The Safest Electric Car Ever

Having no internal combustion engines does not make electric cars safer. It is widely considered that if a battery catches fire, the results would be much more catastrophic than a gasoline explosion.

EV makers, hence, have to be even more cautious while designing their vehicles. Volvo Cars' EV brand Polestar has done this by incorporating the battery within the structure of its upcoming Polestar 2.

There are additional benefits to it. Apart from providing safety to the battery, it provides a stiffer body structure, minimising damage in case of a collision. The battery setup is also claimed to make the structure stable, ¡°acting as a damper to reduce so-called Noise, Vibration and Harshness (NVH) [for passengers within]¡± reads a company statement.

Polestar 2 Crash test

For added protection to the battery, it has been enclosed in an aluminium case and is also meant to disconnect from the entire car in the case of collision.

These, of course, are only the safety features specifically designed to protect the battery. In addition, the Polestar 2 features ¡®SPOC Block¡¯ (Severe Partial Offset Crash), ¡°a deflective solid aluminium block housed on the bottom edge of the front firewall on either side of the car.¡± It has been designed to minimize intrusion of the components outside the cabin from coming in, protecting both the battery pack and the passengers. Watch how the SPOC block works in the video below @28:30:

Now let us just say that the Polestar 2 has to be this good at safety. After all, it comes with a Volvo tag. Thomas Ingenlath, Chief Executive Officer of Polestar understands this better than anyone else - ¡°We are directly linked to Volvo Cars and with that comes their famous reputation for outstanding safety technology.¡±

But a look at some other EVs hints that the battery assembly is just the same in other electric cars as well. Take Tesla Model S, the US EV maker¡¯s trophy car as of now. Having received a 5-star safety rating by Euro NCAP, Model S uses an system of underbody shield to prevent a fire in the battery in case of a collision, as claimed by Elon Musk.

First of three shields is a ¡°rounded, hollow aluminum bar¡± designed to deflect or absorb the impact of anything and turn it upwards away from the battery pack. There is then a ¡°titanium plate¡±, which as per Tesla, is more often used in aerospace or military applications. A third shield is a shallow angle, solid ¡°aluminum extrusion¡± to absorb the residual impact energy.

Polestar is yet to start the deliveries of the Polestar 2. Once that is done and an NCAP safety test rating is received by the electric car, only then can the safety systems to the two electric cars be compared. However, it can easily be said that the Polestar 2 seems nothing short of a 5-star.