Polestar took its new flagship on a 6,500 kilometer drive from Gothenburg in Sweden to Ouarzazate in Morocco, and turned the whole trip into the car's official press launch. The company calls the Polestar 5 a halo car, the model meant to define the brand, and a grand tourer built to cross countries at speed without drama. Published specifications put the dual-motor version at around 650 kW, roughly 870 horsepower, drawing on a 103 kWh battery running an 800-volt system. The route climbed through the Pyrenees, the French Alps and the High Atlas Mountains before finishing in the dunes of the Sahara. Polestar says the car still had charge to spare for the journey back, which was rather the entire point of choosing a destination that far from the nearest fast charger.
Polestar built its name on the 2 and the 3, so a full-size luxury liftback aimed at the Porsche Taycan and the BMW i7 is a real jump in ambition. According to reports tied to the car's debut at the 2025 Munich Motor Show, the Polestar 5 starts at roughly 120,000 euros in Germany, close to double the entry price of the Polestar 4 and squarely in flagship territory. Reuters reported the car will skip both the United States and China, and published figures put Europe as its first market. That detail matters more than it looks, because a halo EV is rarely built to sell in big numbers. Its job is to pull people into showrooms, where they end up looking at the cheaper models that actually pay the bills. The Sweden to Sahara run is marketing, but the question underneath it, whether a heavy luxury EV can tour in comfort without constant charging stops, is one plenty of buyers genuinely ask. Published figures also quote about 1,015 Nm of torque and a battery supplied by SK On, with the car assembled in China and its body built from bonded aluminum, details that place it firmly against established German and Japanese luxury EVs rather than the cheaper crossovers Polestar started with.
In Polestar's own film, the team frames the drive as a direct answer to the idea that an EV cannot handle long distance and stay enjoyable. One presenter describes the grand tourer brief plainly, a car that travels through countries at speed with ease, and says the contrast between the Alps and the Sahara felt like two different worlds inside a single trip. The video also stops at what Polestar calls the world's largest concentrated solar plant, near Marrakesh, which the narrator says bounces sunlight off mirrors into reactors that drive steam turbines, runs 24 hours a day and produces close to enough power for the whole city. Polestar uses the site as a backdrop rather than making any charging claim about it. By the finish in the dunes, the host repeats that there was still battery left and no range anxiety, which is exactly the feeling the company says it set out to leave with the assembled media. Polestar leans into its own ethos along the way, with one team member repeating a company line that if something is easy it is not worth doing, and describing the 5 as a car with very specialist engineering underneath that demanded a special launch.
Bottom line: This is a manufacturer's own launch film, so take the romance with a pinch of sand. The interesting signal is not the scenery, it is that Polestar felt confident enough to make range the headline of a 6,500 kilometer drive rather than something to quietly manage. If the production car gets anywhere close to that on ordinary roads, the 5 becomes a credible Taycan alternative for people who actually road trip. At around 120,000 euros it is not for most of us, but halo cars seldom are. Wait for independent range tests before you believe the dunes.
Commentary on a third-party video. Figures and claims are as presented in the source and have not been independently verified. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will correct it.