Polestar O2 a potential 911 competitor?

LOS ANGELES — Electric vehicle startup Polestar increasingly fancies itself a Porsche competitor.

The Swedish automaker has said it will deliver a pair of performance crossovers as early as next year, aimed squarely at the affluent Porsche Cayenne and Macan customers. With a swoopy roadster concept Polestar is now hinting at its next target: Porsche's flagship 911.

The Polestar O2 concept, revealed last week on the rooftop of a Beverly Hills, Calif., office building, is a hardtop convertible that reflects the brand's next-generation design aesthetic and features a new aluminum platform.

"The concept combines our ambitions for sustainability and circularity with a stunning emotional design," Polestar design boss Maximilian Missoni told Automotive News. "This really shows where we're heading from a design language."

The O2 sits low and wide and features short front and rear overhangs, a compact 2+2 cabin design and a long wheelbase.

Aerodynamics are maximized through disguised design features, such as integrated ducts that improve airflow over the wheels and body sides, and rear lights that function as air blades to reduce turbulence behind the car.

The O2 sits on a bonded-aluminum platform that will debut on the Polestar 5 large sedan, which arrives in the next couple of years. The platform delivers a stiffer chassis, enabling tight body control, high rigidity and improved driving dynamics, the company said.

Missoni described the O2 as a "meeting point between technology and art, between precision and sculpture."

But Polestar's latest concept isn't just a fanciful indulgence for the brand's designers. It is "not so far away from reality," Missoni said.

"I want this applied art feeling," he said. "It's an amazing piece of design, but I could drive it tomorrow."