Polestar this week presented its vision of the future: new technology and next-generation vehicles that the Swedish EV company, owned by China’s Geely Holdings, hopes will boost sales and fuel an era of growth.
The first Polestar Day event in Los Angeles – aimed at convincing investors and journalists of the potential for a profitable future – was in stark contrast to the present. Just a day earlier, the company revised its outlook, lowered 2023 delivery targets, announced new investment from Volvo and Geely and told the market it needed another $1.3 billion in external financing in the form of debt and equity will have until the cash flows break down. even in 2025.
By walking the line between the company’s financial reality and its product ambitions, the focus was placed even more on the event itself.
“Polestar Day obviously has great significance for us to actually showcase and highlight this innovation melange that comes together here,” Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath told TechCrunch in an interview during the event.
And it was a melange: the company showed off its entire future lineup, including the Polestar 3, 4, 5, Polestar Precept, the Polestar Electric Roadster Concept and the Polestar Synergy. The company also made a handful of announcements that at least nominally tied together its vision of the future, offering investors and journalists rides in the upcoming Polestar 3 and Polestar 4.
The focus on upcoming models, ultra-fast charging, integration of automated driving sensors, future vehicle-to-grid technology and production announcements suggest Polestar is taking a comprehensive approach to growth, even in the face of headwinds.
The headwind is significant. Electric vehicle adoption has slowed, especially in the luxury market. The EV industry is further hampered by high interest rates, tariff pressure to bring manufacturing to the US, economic uncertainty in China and two wars around the world.
Polestar, a small luxury performance EV carmaker, is in a tighter position – even with large-scale investors like Volvo and Geely. The company only has one model, the Polestar 2, in the US market.
With a recent downward revision to global sales for 2023, all eyes are on the Polestar 3 and Polestar 4.
Banking on Polestar 3 and Polestar 4
“When we talk about what’s going to happen with this company over the next 18 months,” Ingenlath said, “these products are coming to market and at the same time we’ve made sure that by 2025, we’re going to be a profitable company with break-even cash flow. ”
The Polestar 3 will be delivered in the US in early 2024 and the Polestar 4 will enter production soon, with deliveries in 2025.
Ingenlath says the company is counting on the Polestar 3 and Polestar 4 to reach its breakeven target in 2025.
“Polestar 3 and 4 are crucial factors; they are the core of the business,” he said, underscoring the company’s emphasis on price over volume.
First drives: Polestar 3 and Polestar 4
The company offered attendees the opportunity to ride in pre-development versions of their upcoming Polestar 3 and Polestar 4 on short 10-minute rides around Santa Monica Airport in stop-and-go traffic.
The Polestar 3 is the more ‘luxurious’ and larger of the two vehicles, with an SUV-like roofline, ample rear seat space and a fully digital cockpit. It is also the first vehicle the company has built on a completely new platform. From the back seat, the Polestar 3 is quiet, cavernous and comfortable, with plenty of legroom and headroom. It features air suspension that provides enough driving feel to feel connected, without the heaviness, making it more agile and lighter on its feet.
There is one vertical infotainment screen in the center of the dashboard and a driver information screen mounted to the steering column. While you operate most of the vehicle’s functions (such as single-pedal mode and various driving modes), the controls for the headlights and wipers are within easy reach on the stalk via the main infotainment screen.
The Polestar 4 is the SUV coupe of the range with a sloping roofline – believe it or not, no rear window. This unconventional omission allowed designers to give rear passengers more head and leg room, according to the company. The Polestar 4 has a slightly shorter wheelbase than the 3, but from the rear passenger’s perspective it doesn’t feel claustrophobic, even without the rear window.
In the Polestar 4, the driver’s digital rear-view mirror. The sunroof extends to just behind the tops of the rear passengers’ heads, so it doesn’t feel like a coffin, even though there’s no glass behind the seats. Ambient lighting around the interior makes the lack of a rear window almost unnoticeable.
The Polestar 4 also gets a large central infotainment screen, but it’s oriented horizontally instead of vertically and the driver information screen is mounted on the dashboard instead of the steering column. There’s no HUD in the Polestar 4 and unlike the 3, it comes with steel suspension. That setup makes it feel harder on potholed roads and translates undulations and heavy-feeling movements for rear-seat passengers.
The technology and ride-along experience weren’t the surprising part. Instead, it was how excited customers who joined TechCrunch in the cars were for the future vehicles. A customer from Indiana told us he ordered a Polestar 3 and was so impressed with the infotainment screen functions during the drive that he couldn’t keep his hands off it.
Future batteries, V2G and automated driving
Polestar also used its opening event to highlight technology partnerships with companies like Luminar, Mobileye and StoreDot, a battery company that Polestar invested in last year.
Most of these tech partnerships, such as the relationship with lidar company Luminar, are not new; the companies had announced an agreement to work together in February this year and plans were announced in August 2023 to integrate lidar alongside the Mobileye Chauffeur technology.
The point apparently wasn’t to make new announcements, but to show what capabilities these next-gen vehicles could have.
The Polestar 4, for example, will feature lidar, which will support an advanced driver assistance system that enables automated driving on highways. However, that system is not yet completely ready.
During the presentation, Mobileye CEO Amnon Shashua, who was not present but had pre-recorded his statements, showed a video of a Polestar 4 using Mobileye technology to navigate a roundabout. Although the vehicle was able to successfully enter, merge and exit traffic without driver intervention, the execution was not smooth. The video showed the prototype vehicle stopping and starting as it entered roundabout traffic, just as an uncertain driver would do. During his recorded remarks, Shashua said the video was recorded last week.
Perhaps one of the more intriguing companies highlighted at the event was StoreDot, an Israel-based battery company that makes pocket cell batteries with what it calls ultra-fast charging, or XFC, capabilities.
Polestar first invested in StoreDot in May 2022 and is now aiming to integrate a so-called “0-100 in 5 minutes” silicon anode battery technology into future electric vehicles.
CEO and co-founder of StoreDot, Doron Myersdorf, attended the event on Thursday and demonstrated a small-scale model of the XFC battery technology, which charged a pair of cells to 80% in just under eight minutes.
StoreDot developed the battery cells, while Polestar, a ‘major investor and collaboration partner’, worked with the company to develop the battery chassis and liquid cooling system that keeps the fast-charging cells below 40 degrees C – a crucial point for efficient charging. Myersdorf said the technology was tested for 1,000 fast charging cycles and said there was no more battery degradation than with slow charging.
“Slow charging and fast charging are the same thing for this technology,” Myersdorf said, “So you could basically get a half-million mile warranty” on the battery. He also noted that not only does the battery die after 1000 charges, but it only charges up to 80%. Polestar and StoreDot say they will demonstrate the jointly developed battery pack at full scale in a Polestar 5 prototype sometime in 2024.
Polestar also announced vehicle-to-grid or V2G plans in Sweden and California. The company has agreed to join a coalition of energy distributors and suppliers, home charging station providers and university researchers for a pilot project using V2G technology and a fleet of Polestar 3s in and around Gotenberg, Sweden. In California, Polestar announced it will participate in a preliminary study to create a roadmap for V2G technology in the state. The project in Sweden will last two years, starting in 2024, and the preliminary study in California will start in December and last one year.
It’s still very early days for this kind of technology, and there are still plenty of hurdles to overcome – everything from legislative battles to infrastructure. But if the V2G technology works as Polestar hopes, it would make Polestar’s new Virtual Power Plant, or VPP, useful. Polestar said the cloud-based VPP system would allow Polestar3 owners to feed energy back into the grid when their vehicle is parked, both at home and in public.
The path forward
As the EV industry continues to shrink, smaller automakers like Polestar will have to act quickly to stay afloat.
Ingenlath says he is optimistic about Polestar’s future.
“We shouldn’t be super shocked about the EV market,” Ingenlath said, referring to declining demand for EVs. “I mean, the crucial point is: to what extent are you as a company prepared to go through such a valley?” he continued. “We will definitely survive.”