Innovating performance suspension springs for the Polestar 2 BST edition 270

After agreeing on a spring design with everyone delighted with designs and deadlines being met, Joakim took the Polestar BST edition 270 test car to Spain for high-speed testing which revealed the suspension was a bit too stiff.

Rydholm explains: “When you do a project like this, in your heart you need it to be perfect.” The drive showed it wasn’t perfect. As Joakim freely admits, he had to make one of the most difficult calls in his life to the Lesjöfors team. The new Polestar BST edition 270 suspension spring was ready at Lesjöfors but the drive had shown that the spring needed a change. Rydholm says: “Here I was, knowing that I had given Lesjöfors an almost impossible deadline which they had met, to then make a call from Spain explaining that the springs needed to be modified once again. The ride height and stiffness needed to be adjusted. Incredibly, Olof and his team understood everything across our ride heights and spring stiffness, designing a new suspension spring and manufacturing to the new requirements, shipping it out to Spain the next day. It has to be said, when you call from the test track and ask the springs to be 5% softer and they come the next day – that’s customer service.”

With the new springs fitted, Joakim took a week long extreme drive from +20 degrees Celsius from Barcelona’s proving ground to -25 degree Celsius in Northern Sweden as he drove across dry asphalt, through rain, ice and snow.

To secure the quality of the project, Polestar were deeply respectful of the consultative process and time required at Lesjöfors, covering all costs and therefore delivering machinery capacity to be exclusively utilised just for Polestar’s manufacturing needs. This open book policy, with no secrets and full exposure to each other’s criteria meant that Lesjöfors could deliver to Polestar’s deadline. As Rydholm says: “Without Lesjöfors it would not be possible to create a car in this lead time.”

Jonsson confirms: “We have a perfect partnership with Polestar, working together as closely as we do means we can feel the results together – and makes calls like Joakim’s, when he needs a last- minute change, the easier to make! We want the right results for our customers and will do everything in our power to make that happen.”

"Everyone played their part in the development and delivery of the suspension spring for the Polestar BST edition 270. From the design department to the material scientists to the operators on the coilers to the paint shop, we all worked together and all learned together which has helped everyone raise their own knowledge, empowered the team and delivered a huge amount of pride.” Quite brilliantly and generously, Polestar recently took the BST edition 270 production car to the team at Lesjöfors and invited them to an exclusive test drive, to feel the end result of all their hard work for themselves.

This experience completed the Lesjöfors’ team shared understanding of the power of their custom suspension spring design and manufacture.