Hasta La Ideas

Swedish automotive brand Polestar has unveiled their new Polestar 4, which they say takes “a fundamental new approach to SUV coupé design.” This involves introducing a rather radical design feature, or design omission: While vehicle rear windows have been shrinking for years, Polestar’s designers decided to cut to the chase and get rid of it altogether. There’s no glass back there.

The rationale doesn’t quite click with me, but perhaps I’d need to sit in the vehicle to comprehend it. “Eliminating the rear window…enables a new kind of immersive rear occupant experience,” the company writes. “Thanks to the elimination of the rear window, the glass roof stretches beyond the rear occupants’ heads, creating a truly unique interior ambience.” (Strangely, the company has not included any interior photos of the rear seats in their media materials.)

That glass roof comes with an electrochromic option, so passengers can switch it from opaque to transparent at will.

As for how the driver sees out of the back:

“The rear-view mirror is replaced by a high-definition screen that shows a real-time feed from a roof-mounted rear camera – enabling a far wider field of view than what can be experienced in most modern cars. The digital feed can be deactivated to allow drivers to instead see rear occupants if needed.”

During their presentation, the company showed the view that they reckon a standard mirror provides…

…stacked up against what their camera apparently shows:

This doesn’t seem terribly different to me than existing rearview mirror cameras, so I’m still not sure why the window was omitted. Will customers like (or even care about) the window omission? Time will tell; the Polestar 4 won’t launch until 2024.