Last year, we swooned over the Polestar Precept. An all-electric saloon car with the Porsche Taycan and Audi e-tron GT surely in its sights, it was a smart looking thing. Just not something we could actually buy.

But the Polestar 5 will be. This is our first glimpse at the car the Precept will become, a svelte fastback EV that’ll deploy batteries, motors and technology in thus far undetermined quantities. Yeah, we’ve not really been told much. Nor been given a peak at any other angles of the car.

“Precept was developed to preview the future of Polestar, embodying the company’s key pillars of design, sustainability, technology and performance,” we’re told. “Now seen with production readiness in mind, the Polestar 5 embodies the company’s increasingly independent and muscular design language, cues of which will already be seen on Polestar 3 that is expected to be launched in 2022.”

The Polestar 5 will appear in 2024, apparently. It’ll come with an interior abundant in recycled materials. And no doubt screens, too.

Excited? Reckon you’ll have this over an e-tron?

Whenever a fantastic concept car makes it into production, we celebrate. It was the case with the Hyundai IONIQ 5, first seen as the 45 Concept. Buick said it would not make the Wildcat EV, which is a sin. At least Polestar will have a production version for the Precept. Car and Driver found patent images that show the Polestar 5 will be very similar to that striking concept.
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One of the most intriguing aspects of the new EV is that it will not have a rear glass. The patent image of the back even presents where the camera to compensate for that will be. Just check the bottom of the massive solar roof, which will extend until the middle of the C-pillar. What comes next is the trunk lid.

As we told our readers in February, the Swedish carmaker said the Polestar 5 will have increased torsional stiffness. That was probably achieved by eliminating the rear window, which also helped Polestar obtain a more aerodynamic design by eliminating the rear wiper – and the back window with it.

Considering the need for vehicles that do not fight so much with the airflow, this design choice will probably be more common than expected. The Lightyear One also does not have a rear window. A massive solar panel replaced it. With the presentation of the production version on June 9, Lightyear may even be the first company to reach the market with this new body arrangement. To be fair, we have had production cars without a back window before, but they became unusual enough for the solution to be forgotten.

Curiously, the Polestar 5’s patent images do not present any signs of LiDAR, a piece of equipment that the Polestar Precept had. The NIO ET5 and ET7 have it integrated into their design, which suggests that it will be an option on the Polestar 5. In the Precept, it looked like something that was added afterward, so that’s probably why the patent images did not show it.

Another one is that the Polestar 5 will be a driver’s car, one in which owners will not want any sort of drive assistance or attempted automation. While its style promises precisely that, Polestar’s links with Volvo suggest that it will also offer those possibilities. After all, Luminar must have cut a deal that included both companies: the Volvo Embla will have its LiDARs.

We just got a preview of the 2024 Polestar 5 thanks to some European patent renderings. But now we've got a look at the real thing thanks to one of our spy photographers. While not fully shown, the thin camouflage confirms that the patent renderings are accurate and that the Polestar 5 will look just like the Precept concept, shown in the gallery below.

Even without production headlights, it's clear that the 5 will feature the new split headlights previewed by the Precept, and it has a low, pointy nose with a small grille opening in the bumper. The profile has similarities to the Polestar 2, but with a longer nose and a lower, more flowing roofline. The whole car has more crisp lines than its smaller sibling, too.

The rear shows evidence of the Precept's thin, sharp taillights and makes the hatch clearly visible. It also has sprouted a little spoiler. It doesn't look like part of the final car. It may be there to simulate an active spoiler that hasn't been implemented on this prototype.

The Polestar 5 is part of an aggressive product roll-out from the Swedish brand. It's slated to be revealed and go on sale sometime next year as a 2024 model. Before then, the Polestar 3 will be revealed on October 3 of this year. And somewhere in-between will be a high-volume Polestar 4. Reportedly, the Polestar 5 will feature dual electric motors and an 800-volt, 100-kWh battery pack for fast charging and a range around 300 miles.