Polestar Has a Bold Plan—Get Better at Selling Cars | EUROtoday
Polestar makes the Polestar 3 in a South Carolina manufacturing unit, and final 12 months warned that any gross sales ban “shuts down the operations of a lawfully organized US company with substantial US investments.”
“The US is an important market for us,” Kim Palmer, Polestar head of PR, tells WIRED. Suggesting the speccing of non-Chinese software program and different supplies, Palmer provides: “We are in advanced stages to adapt our future models to make sure they comply with the regulation in terms of hardware, software, and suppliers.”
Nevertheless, Lohscheller might need to ask the Trump administration for dispensation to promote its US-manufactured vehicles within the US. Trump’s antipathy towards EVs is well-known, however it’s unclear how a lot of America’s EV coverage shall be influenced by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
“It’s an unusual conflict of interest to see the CEO of Tesla in any way involved with EV policy for the entire country,” mentioned Peter Wells, a enterprise professor and director of the Centre for Automotive Industry Research at Cardiff University in Wales, UK. “There’s an enormous potential [for Musk] to rewrite the rules to suit Tesla’s best interests.”
If this proves to be the case, it may show mighty exhausting for Polestar to get dispensation. Perhaps that’s why, in his presentation, Lohscheller harassed Polestar’s pivot into France. A trademark dispute with Citroen—the corporate claimed the Polestar brand was too much like its personal—beforehand prevented Polestar from promoting within the French market.
However, there’s a possible snafu. Would-be Polestar purchasers don’t but qualify for France’s EV subsidy. “Polestar is not on the list of companies which have been approved by France to have qualified for their ecological bonus,” says Wells. “That’s not to say they couldn’t be on it in the future, but if they can’t get qualified for that scheme, they’ve got an incentive problem.”
Lochscheller mentioned that 2024 had been a transition 12 months for Polestar, and that now the corporate would revert to a extra conventional dealership-based gross sales mannequin.
“A lot of things need to change,” mentioned Lochscheller, “starting with sales and distribution. I call it from showing to active selling. The company has done a good job setting up the direct-to-consumer baseline, now the key task is making sure that the active selling through retail partners is improving.” More showrooms, then, and fewer reliance on on-line gross sales—old-school pondering.
“Our [retail] footprint is growing,” mentioned Lochscheller, citing that incontrovertible fact that there at the moment are 25 Polestar showrooms in Sweden, 20 greater than final 12 months, and 20 showrooms within the UK, up from eight final 12 months.
“By expanding dealership sales, Polestar can reach more customers, thereby increasing overall sales volume,” Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of trade insights for Cox Automotive, writer of the Kelley Blue Book car valuer, tells WIRED. “Customers are more likely to invest in a brand they can interact with and rely on,” she says.
Wells agrees: “Polestar, under new leadership, is now finally going to focus on being better at retail, and being better at bringing the revenues in. They’re going back to the traditional [automotive] sales model and presenting themselves to consumers in a less exotic way.”
Lochscheller, Wells says, is instilling in Polestar a “sense of conservatism, an attempt to cut costs, drive up volumes, adopt a more traditional marketing strategy, and generate enough revenue to survive.”
Polestar vehicles can be found in 27 nations. Production of the Polestar 4 will begin in South Korea within the second half of 2025. Polestar 5, a Porsche Taycan-rivalling GT, is because of go on sale later this 12 months and is constructed on the model’s first bespoke EV structure. The proposed Polestar 7 may do properly within the US, claims Streaty. “Developing a vehicle in the premium compact SUV segment is a smart move,” she says.
With break-even nonetheless not less than two years away, Polestar will possible want extra financing to see it via to profitability. But Polestar—reliant on help from its final Chinese proprietor—might not have two years, claims Wells. “The Chinese EV market is booming, but there’s lots of competition, with rampant price cutting. The risk for Polestar is that their financial support may not last. Polestar might become an extravagance too far for Geely. Market conditions are moving faster than company strategic plans.”
https://www.wired.com/story/polestars-plan-to-save-itself-from-ruin/