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Volvo V60 Polestar speeds into view

Send us photos of a new wagon out testing, and you've got our attention. Send us photos of a fast wagon lapping the Nürburgring and, well, we're just as giddy as can be. Our spy shooters just blessed our inbox with some fresh shots of Volvo's new V60 wagon out testing in Polestar guise, sporting the same Rebel Blue paint job as the thunder-from-Down-Under limited-edition S60 Polestar, as well as an aggressive front fascia, huge wheels, Brembo brakes, a rear diffuser panel and a roof spoiler. Hello there, hot stuff.
Like its sedan counterpart, the V60 Polestar is expected to use a boosted version of Volvo's 3.0-liter turbocharged six-cylinder engine, pumping out something like 350 horsepower. To keep everything in check, that force will almost certainly be sent to the ground via all-wheel drive.
It's unclear if Volvo will sell the V60 Polestar as a limited-edition affair for our friends in Australia, or if this longroof hot-hauler will be offered in other markets this time. After all, Volvo is bringing the V60 over to American soil early next year, so consider our fingers - and toes - crossed.

Volvo finds a way to turn body panels into batteries [w/video]

One of the problems with designing an electric vehicle is figuring out where to fit the battery pack. Volvo - as a part of a European Union research project - is working on a way around this issue by replacing standard parts with lightweight components that double as batteries on both conventional and plug-in vehicles. The image above shows one such piece on a Volvo S80. While looking like nothing more than a carbon fiber plenum cover, the piece is actually a battery pack that can store and supply enough energy for the car's entire 12-volt power system.
The parts are made by sandwiching super capacitors (which can charge faster than standard batteries) in between layers of carbon fiber. They can then be formed to replace numerous body panels such as the decklid, roof or door panels. Volvo says that the replacing the body panels and batteries with these nano batteries can help reduce the vehicle's weight by as much as 15 percent. It has taken more than three years just to design the batteries, so there's no telling when, or if, we'll ever see this technology used on a production vehicle. Scroll down for a video and press release on Volvo's innovative battery technology.

Volvo's plan for China: sell them on the clean air inside the car

Large Chinese cities aren't known for having clean air. Just this week, the Chinese city of Harbin filled with record levels of smog after starting the city's coal-fired heating system, according to CNN. But Li Shufu, the chairman of Geely, Volvo's parent company, says the automaker's astute attention to cabin comfort in areas such as air filtration is a selling point for the Swedish automaker in China, Forbes reports.
Shufu says when he is inside a Volvo, he feels like he's in Northern Europe, but when the door is opened, he feels like he's in Beijing. The chairman made the remarks at the fourth annual Global Auto Forum (GAF) in China (which also happened to be attended by Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford, which was Volvo's owner until 2010), where he emphasized Geely's hands-off approach to managing Volvo, saying, "Geely and Volvo are brothers, not father and son."
While good filtration contributes to cabin comfort, the way we see it, Shufu also is allowing Volvo to play to its most well-known strength: safety. Smog protection via air filtration might not seem like the most important safety feature for a car in the US (unless you live in Los Angeles), but when you consider that Harbin's level of fine particles was up to 30 times higher than the World Health Organization's recommended standard on Tuesday, we'd think twice about that. Fine particles, which are 2.5 micrometers in diameter or less, are considered to be the most harmful to health.