The coolest thing about Polestar’s futuristic concept might be its physical button dashboard

Posted on by

Polestar has a habit of turning its concept cars into real cars, which makes its show cars worth a closer look. The Precept, a sleek four-door GT revealed online in 2020 after the Geneva Motor Show was canceled, grew up into the Polestar 5. Nahum Escobedo, the designer who gave the Precept its shark-and-airplane lines, now runs exterior design for the whole brand. So when Polestar shows a new concept and says pieces of it are headed for showrooms, I believe them. Meet the Formula 2030, a low-slung four-door sports car that previews the next Polestar 2 and the upcoming Polestar 7.

The Formula 2030 is also the first show car from head of design Philipp Römers, who came over from Audi in 2024. It sits just 53 inches tall, lower than the Polestar 5. It wears a new color Polestar calls Nitrogen that shifts with natural light, plus Swedish Gold on everything from the Brembo calipers to the seatbelts. Inside, Polestar brings back eight physical controls, and you can swap each one between a rocker switch and a rotary knob. One catch for US readers: Polestar is barred from selling new models here starting with model year 2027, so you’ll be enjoying this future from a distance.

Designer: Polestar

Lower Than a Model 3, Shaped Like a Coupe

Polestar lists the Formula 2030 at 184.3 inches long, 79.6 inches wide, and 53 inches tall (4,680 x 2,021 x 1,350 mm), riding on a 109.4-inch (2,780 mm) wheelbase. That makes it slightly shorter than a Tesla Model 3 and about 3.5 inches lower. The cabin sits pushed back over fat rear haunches, with a long hood and short overhangs, a cab-rearward recipe usually reserved for two-door coupes. From above, Polestar describes coke-bottle hips with the visual weight piled onto the rear wheels. The brand says the car lands somewhere between the next Polestar 2 and the Polestar 7 in size, so think of it as the family sketchbook in physical form.

Up front, the Dual Blade headlights borrow from the Polestar 3 and get tucked into a front aero wing above a shark nose and a deep splitter. A central spine anchors that splitter to the body and runs up the hood to a single, vertically mounted windshield wiper, a motorsport trick that looks fantastic even parked. The wraparound, visor-style windscreen is a deliberate nod to the original Polestar 2. My favorite detail is the LiDAR, which hides under an aero shroud and only pops up when the car is driving itself. After years of roof-mounted sensor humps on cars like Volvo’s EX90, a sensor that knows when to disappear feels like good manners.

The Light Bar Is Dead, and the Trunk Has Nothing to Hide

Around back, Polestar drops the full-width light bar found on nearly every EV and replaces it with Single Blade taillights, which the brand says are arriving ahead of series production. The lights trace a graphic that angles down toward the road, evolving the sharp geometric shapes Polestar has used before. Polestar itself calls the rear UFO-esque, and the glass backs that up by wrapping into the shallow side windows, broken only by a chunky C-pillar. A wing sits centrally on illuminated mounts, with a diffuser below doing the aero work. Escobedo says the goal was to keep the brand instantly recognizable while challenging expectations, and the taillights are where that tension shows most.

The rear doors hinge at the back and there’s no B-pillar, so opening both sides exposes the entire cabin and its four individual seats, a trick the Precept also pulled. Pop the rear clamshell and you find a transparent trunk floor, with custom Polestar bags strapped underneath by gold luggage straps. It’s luggage displayed like a museum exhibit, which I find both ridiculous and delightful. The race-inspired Öhlins dampers are on show back there too. Up front, the frunk is fitted for two racing helmets and a fire extinguisher, framed by a gold strut brace, which pretty much spells out Polestar’s idea of a good weekend.

Eight Buttons and a Cabin That Moves Around You

The driver faces the 20-inch HyperDIM, a curved display mounted directly on the steering column so it travels with the wheel. A 12.2-inch center screen rises out of a gently sloping center tunnel. You pick drive modes by sliding a selector forward through the console, and the cabin physically rearranges itself to match. In Autonomous, the center screen stands upright while the seat and steering wheel move away from each other, giving you room to lounge. Slide into Performance and the center screen sinks flush into the console as the wheel and HyperDIM pull toward your chest, which is about as close as an interior gets to rolling up its sleeves.

Below that center screen sits the panel that made me want to applaud: eight physical controls built on what Polestar calls a mechatronics solution. Owners can pick rocker switches or rotary controllers for each slot, then program individual hot keys for the functions they use most. Interior design chief Juan Pablo Bernal says the brand is rebalancing digital and physical in pursuit of a “tactile harmony.” The timing lines up with Euro NCAP, whose 2026 protocols reward physical controls for basics like indicators, hazards, and wipers, and Europe is where Polestar sells most of its cars. Google Gemini handles voice commands, so the screens keep the deep stuff while your fingers handle the everyday.

Nitrogen Paint, Swedish Gold, and the Polestar 2 Coming in 2027

Nitrogen, the concept’s new exterior color, is designed to react to natural light and runs tone-on-tone across the body, side cladding, splitter, diffuser, and 22-inch center-lock four-spoke wheels. Gloss, matte, and satin finishes keep each part distinct, while Swedish Gold lands on the calipers, valve caps, seatbelts, and cabin trim. Structural parts inside, like the seat frames and cross-car beam, are made from low-emission galvanized steel and left exposed on purpose. The seat backs use European flax and bio-based polypropylene in a grid weave, colored after the fields the flax grows in. Bcomp’s natural-fiber composite shows up in the cargo area too, so the sustainability pitch is something you can literally see.

Polestar has confirmed that design elements from the Formula 2030 will reach the next Polestar 2 in 2027 and the Polestar 7 in 2028, with the 7 set to be built in Europe. The Dual Blade face is already earmarked for the new Polestar 2, and the Single Blade taillights are tagged for production too. Power, range, and pricing remain under wraps, so the concept’s job right now is setting the look and the cabin philosophy. Römers inherited a strong design language from Maximilian Missoni, and his first show car keeps that DNA while fixing the biggest gripe about modern EV cabins. If the Precept is any guide, a good chunk of this car will be sitting in European driveways soon.

The post The coolest thing about Polestar’s futuristic concept might be its physical button dashboard first appeared on Yanko Design.

Flint’s Rechargeable Paper Battery Works Without Lithium

Posted on by

Paper is an unexpected starting point for a rechargeable battery, which is part of Flint’s appeal. The Singapore-based company uses cellulose, the plant-derived material in paper, to rethink what goes inside the cells powering our gadgets. Its paper battery targets two problems that rarely make it onto the packaging: the materials batteries depend on and the safety concerns that come with storing energy in everyday objects.

Flint announced on January 2, 2026, that its technology had entered production in Singapore, supplying cells for customer pilots and early commercial integrations. That’s an important distinction from a promising laboratory sample, although it doesn’t mean you can grab a pack at the checkout counter. The company currently focuses on businesses and manufacturers rather than direct consumer sales.

Designer: Flint Labs

The name needs a little unpacking. You aren’t charging a sheet of stationery, and paper alone isn’t supplying the electricity. Flint uses zinc and manganese alongside its cellulose-based architecture and water-based electrolyte. The battery still has the familiar internal arrangement of an anode, cathode, and separator. Flint says cellulose supports ion transfer and gives the design structural flexibility. I like that the material has an actual job here, beyond making the sustainability story sound approachable.

That flexibility gives designers options beyond a rigid cylinder or rectangular block. Flint says its chemistry can accommodate different shapes, and IEEE Spectrum’s reporter handled a thin, bendable version at CES. The technology can also take familiar AA and AAA forms. To me, that’s a more interesting design proposition than making every device thinner: giving the battery more ways to fit the object.

Safety is another major part of the pitch. Flint describes its water-based batteries as non-flammable and resistant to damage, and its website presents demonstrations involving cutting a cell and exposing one to flame. Those demonstrations are attention-grabbing, but I’d put more weight on documented testing for a particular finished product. A dramatic demonstration can make the chemistry understandable; it doesn’t establish every condition a gadget might encounter.

The applications feel most convincing when they stay close to ordinary life. Flint has been piloting its technology with Logitech, including AAA batteries, according to IEEE Spectrum’s reporting. A mouse or keyboard might not have the glamour of an electric vehicle, but that’s a useful place to prove an alternative chemistry. I’d rather see a battery earn its place in an unremarkable daily object than headline an implausibly ambitious concept.

Then comes the composting claim, which deserves more care than the word “paper” suggests. Flint says its metals can be recovered and the remaining material composted. Its explanation also involves removing the vacuum-sealed casing before degradation begins. That isn’t an invitation to toss an intact battery into the backyard. I’d want explicit disposal instructions and a practical recovery route before treating compostability as an everyday convenience.

Performance remains the other test. Flint’s founder has claimed up to 1,000 charge cycles, but IEEE Spectrum reported that the company hadn’t published a white paper detailing its proprietary design. That leaves a gap between promising specifications and evidence readers can examine. I’m interested, but I wouldn’t translate those figures into a promise about how long a future wearable or remote will last between charges.

One less flashy choice may matter just as much: manufacturing. Flint says it deliberately designed the battery to align with existing lithium-ion production processes, while its Singapore facility uses water-based manufacturing methods. Compatibility with familiar equipment could help manufacturers consider a different chemistry without rebuilding everything around it. It’s the kind of practical decision I appreciate because an alternative material has limited value if making it remains prohibitively complicated.

For me, the payoff would be reassuringly uneventful: a gadget that works as expected, with a battery chosen more thoughtfully and a clear destination when it wears out. Flint has made that prospect worth watching. The next persuasive step is letting ordinary products, and their owners, do the demonstrating.

The post Flint’s Rechargeable Paper Battery Works Without Lithium first appeared on Yanko Design.

DIY Steam Deck Rebuild Pairs a Game Boy-Style Body With a Physical Keyboard

Posted on by

Handheld gaming PCs tend to put their controls on either side of a wide screen, leaving the Game Boy layout to retro machines. This DIY Steam Deck rebuild brings that upright silhouette into PC gaming, with a 5.5-inch display, two thumbsticks, and a physical keyboard squeezed into a 3D-printed body. It’s a different answer to what a portable gaming PC should look like.

The trick starts with a Steam Deck motherboard, which is paired with a smaller LCD and parts sourced from a broken Deck. Rather than copying Valve’s enclosure, the new shell stacks the screen, keyboard, and gaming controls vertically. The screen itself remains horizontal, of course. It’s the arrangement around it that changes, putting the display above your hands instead of between them.

Designer: LCLDIY

That keyboard is where the project wanders away from a simple nostalgia exercise. Rows of tiny circular keys occupy the space between the display and controller buttons, complete with a number row and letter keys. Red WASD keys stand out among the black ones, making the PC connection hard to miss. This Game Boy relative has considerably more to say for itself.

Having physical keys could make entering a search term, naming a save, or typing a message less dependent on an on-screen keyboard. You wouldn’t have to surrender part of the display just to bring up the letters. Those small, tightly packed buttons don’t promise laptop-like typing, however. They’re better understood as a compact input option than an invitation to write your novel.

Below the keyboard, two red thumbsticks flank a black directional pad and four red face buttons. The white enclosure keeps those clusters visually distinct, despite the unusually busy front. Your thumbs work beneath the screen rather than alongside it, while typing means reaching farther up the body. The layout separates playing and text entry spatially, even though both happen on the same surface.

Building that arrangement takes more than finding an empty shell. The project includes a custom circuit board populated with small switches, along with firmware and a case modeled around the replacement display, using water-soluble printing material for finer detail. Soldering and programming are part of the work, so this isn’t a housing you snap around an otherwise untouched handheld.

The project carries a Windows-oriented title, but the handheld retains SteamOS. That’s an important distinction, since Valve’s Proton compatibility layer lets supported Windows games run on Linux without installing Windows. The build therefore shouldn’t be mistaken for a confirmed Windows conversion. Its familiar Steam interface also says little about frame rates or how individual games handle the revised hardware.

Weight, battery life, and cooling performance aren’t documented, so the upright shape shouldn’t be mistaken for a proven comfort upgrade. There’s more to reach around than on an original Game Boy, especially with that keyboard separating screen and sticks. The nostalgic outline survives, but its simple controls have given way to something your childhood handheld never needed: a place for the Ctrl key.

The post DIY Steam Deck Rebuild Pairs a Game Boy-Style Body With a Physical Keyboard first appeared on Yanko Design.