Volvo Polestar models could debut 336kW ‘triple boost’ engine – report

Revealed as a concept in late 2014, the high-powered engine was pegged as the ultimate interpretation of Volvo’s plans to base its future powertrain offerings on variations of a four-cylinder design.

The engine’s design, which matches two parallel turbochargers with an electric turbo-compressor and a dual fuel pump running at 250 bar pressure, neatly out-punches the 240kW turbo- and supercharged four-cylinder Drive-E T6 engine and even the 298kW four-cylinder petrol-electric T8 unit.

Above: the current S60/V60 Polestar models have now been retired.

Packed into a next-generation S60 Polestar, such a design would conceivably rival the likes of BMW’s M3, powered by a 317kW twin-turbo six-cylinder engine.

Volvo, for its part, has yet to confirm plans to put the triple-boost mill into production, although Volvo Cars CEO Hakan Samuelsson told CarAdvice at the Detroit motor show in January that electrification will play a role in future Polestar models.

“It will be high performance developed on electrification, we will use electrification as a booster, we will not start diluting our brand with big engines and extra cylinders, V8s,” he said.

It may be that Samuelsson was describing the already powerful T8 system, but it is possible that he was alluding to the electrically powered turbo-compressor that features in the triple-turbo engine.

Watch this space.

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