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Polestar 4 Designers Get Rid of the Rear Window

One less thing to Windex?

By Rain Noe - April 25, 2023

in Cars

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.

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Comments

Mark Bellias

a year ago

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As a current Polestar 2 owner (a Polestar that already has a very small rear window) I would say I like the idea but that execution is a worry. Shifting into reverse currently gives you an unsatisfactory delay before the rear-view camera appears, and sometimes doesn't turn on at all without shifting to park and repeating.

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steve hassler

a year ago

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This goes against all biophilic trends to get more daylight into a user space. Why not just run the roof glass all the way down the back for an even better experience? Cars, etc. should be designed with windows that allow the largest area possible around the car to be seen by the driver. Function over form for safety. Keep the wide angle camera rear view mirror if it's better than a normal mirror.

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Jordon Shelby

a year ago

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a new kind of immersive rear occupant experience...... like dark and claustrophobic. Notice how they've left a split line in where a window could go. They'll be a window there come launch time.

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Mike Cheung

a year ago

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I run an always on rear camera on my work van that has no rear windows. Works fine.

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david copeland

a year ago

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This design is one leaf covering the camera, or one circuit from failing to give you a view out the back. One more tech thing to rely on and replace if needed.

Curious what NTSB will say about this!

If the mirror were 'dynamic' relative to the position of the driver, that would be really interesting - say, if you leaned to the left and looked at the mirror, would you see more to one side than if you leaned to the other? If they could simulate the different angles at which a mirror could be looked at to see things not easily in view from a dead-on perspective, that would be interesting!

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Juan Cano

a year ago

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Finally. Now to get rid of the side mirrors.

Do cars come with ON rear view cameras? I don't know. Our KIA, the camera only works when you go in Reverse. I wish it just worked all the time.

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