Polestar builds an SUV coupé without a rear window

Taking away what every car has

On 18 April 2023 at Auto Shanghai, CEO Thomas Ingenlath presents the Polestar 4, which Polestar calls "a new breed of SUV coupé".^1,2 The car's most discussed feature is something it does not have. There is no rear window. A roof-mounted rear camera feeds a high-definition screen placed where the rear-view mirror usually sits.^1,3

Polestar explains the decision through the people in the back. Without a rear window, the rear header, a structural part with a safety role, can be moved further back, and the glass roof can extend over the heads of the rear passengers.¹ Maximilian Missoni, Head of Design at Polestar, puts the result in one sentence: "This means that now, rear occupants can have a unique experience in our SUV coupé."¹ Ingenlath describes the starting point in the release: "we have designed Polestar 4 from the ground up as a new breed of SUV coupé".¹ In size and price the car sits between the Polestar 2 and the Polestar 3.¹ According to Polestar, the camera also gives a wider field of view than the mirror of most modern cars.¹

From concept car to production

The idea is not new to the brand. Polestar says it comes from the Polestar Precept, the concept car it presented in 2020.^1,2 Moving it into a production car changes its meaning. On a concept, an absent rear window is a sketch of the future. On a car with indicative prices from EUR 60,000 and a launch plan for Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, it becomes a decision buyers have to accept.¹ Dezeen describes the Polestar 4 as the first mass-market car with no rear window.⁴

Missoni's explanation in Car Design News links the missing glass to the interior as a whole: "The lack of a rear window has unlocked so many things in the interior. It starts with the longer glass roof..."² To Dezeen he describes the technical premise: "We have realised that the technology has reached a point where you can switch out the physical mirror".

A matter of attitude

The more revealing statement comes in conversation with Top Gear. Missoni points to Polestar's position as a brand "that doesn't have legacy customers who expect certain solutions", and sums it up: "It's a matter of attitude."⁵ Ingenlath adds a practical argument for this body shape: "The window wouldn't help ... it would have been below the actual sightline."⁵

Here the design decision becomes a brand decision. Established carmakers are bound to the expectations of decades of customers. A young brand can use the absence of that history as a licence, and Polestar does so visibly, with a part every driver knows. The missing window is easy to see, easy to explain and easy to talk about, which is what a brand needs from a distinctive feature. It also turns an engineering trade-off into a promise to a specific person, the passenger in the back, whose headroom and view of the sky are the stated reason for the change.¹

Opinion divides

Top Gear writes that Polestar "has taken this whole 'future-facing' maxim a little too literally".⁵ Dezeen covers the windowless rear in February 2024, shortly after orders open in Europe and Australia on 31 January 2024.^4,6 Reviews of the production car find that the digital mirror takes getting used to; InsideEVs finds it "never inconvenient", while noting that a camera failure would leave the screen dark without an optical fallback.⁷

The Polestar 4 itself is the brand's fastest production car at its reveal, with up to 400 kW in the dual motor version, and production starts in November 2023 at Geely's Hangzhou Bay plant, with China as the first market.¹ Deliveries in Europe begin from August 2024.⁶

Repeated, then offered as an option

Polestar keeps the solution for its next model. The Polestar 5 four-door GT, revealed at IAA Mobility in September 2025, also has no rear window and uses the same camera system.⁸ What began as one car's feature becomes a recognisable trait of the brand's coupé-shaped cars.

On 2 September 2026 Polestar adds a second body style, the Polestar 4 SUV, with an upright tailgate, a rear window and a conventional rear-view mirror as standard, the digital mirror being optional.⁹ It is built in Busan, South Korea, and priced in Germany from EUR 57,900.⁹ The coupé keeps its closed rear.⁹ Michael Lohscheller, CEO of Polestar, presents the new version as a broadening: "The Polestar 4 SUV broadens the appeal of our most successful model".¹⁰ The brand thus keeps the statement and adds the familiar alternative beside it, rather than withdrawing it.