Polestar

Hard-core Volvo fans will know the Polestar name quite well, but its current incarnation is quite different from its origins. 

Founded in 1996, Polestar was a privately-owned Swedish race shop that specialized in Volvo tuning, not unlike Alpina to BMW or AMG to Mercedes-Benz. Official Polestar products you could buy from the Volvo dealer included versions of the C30 Coupe, S60 sedan and V60 wagon, all featuring software upgrades that boosted performance. Just as Mercedes-Benz bought AMG in 1999, Volvo purchased Polestar in 2015.

In 2017 Volvo Cars and its corporate owner, China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding, saw an electric future and decided to launch a stand-alone electric vehicle brand stressing performance, sustainability, technology and modern-minimalist styling. This new company would take the Polestar name. 

Polestar’s first product was launched in late 2019: the exotic, hand-made Polestar 1 Coupe, a powerful plug-in hybrid. A second and more mainstream sedan, the Polestar 2, was added for 2021. The Polestar 2 is a pure EV, launched with a 402-horsepower dual-motor setup, with a single-motor version to be added in 2022.

Both of these vehicles were designed under the direction of former Volvo design chief and current Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath, and are evolved from concepts designed as explorations of the parent automaker’s styling themes. The first Polestars use a lot of bits from the Volvo parts bin, a corporate strategy to keep costs down by not reinventing things that already work quite well.

Still, Polestar is not Volvo by another name. The company remains based in Sweden but to date builds its cars in China. In 2022, the automaker will launch its first SUV, the all-electric Polestar 3, which will be built in South Carolina, helping Polestar reduce some of the cost burden of selling vehicles made in China (which are subject to a 27.5% import tariff).

To date, Polestar sells in 13 countries in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia. The U.S. sale operation follows Tesla’s lead, with stand-alone showrooms—“Spaces” in Polestar jargon—and digital ordering. So far there are 23 showrooms in the US—all at stores which also sell Volvos—with 30 scheduled to be open by the end of 2021 and 35 by then end of 2022.

While Polestar expects most cars to be special ordered, each showroom keeps an inventory of 5 to 10 vehicles in various colors and equipment levels for those who just can’t wait. Servicing is done by Polestar-trained specialists, with free pickup and deliver for cars within 150 miles of a showroom and at-home service for cars that are more distant.