BEHIND THE HEADLINES
As EV maker Polestar enters a critical phase, we sit down with CEO Thomas Ingenlath
This has to be Polestar’s year. Created in 2017, listed in 2022 and with just 55,000 cars delivered in 2023, ‘the European Tesla’ has so far struggled to emulate the sales or stock-market successes of its Californian rival. Its share value spent most of last year heading in the wrong direction and in February this year, Volvo – the company that created Polestar in a joint venture with Geely – announced it would cease funding and look to reduce its stake, handing the reins to Geely.
Volvo’s news prompted a slew of negative headlines. But a little over a month on, Ingenlath – the designer (Audi, VW, Skoda, Volvo) turned CEO – has been through the pain and come out the other side.
‘It was always clear the money we needed should not come out of the pockets of our owners,’ he explains. ‘We had to find financing that wasn’t simply going to Volvo and Geely saying, “Mummy, Daddy, we need more money”. That was always the point, and we talked about the financing and equity required to cover this $1.3bn. At the end of 2023 we were well progressed but we couldn’t at that stage say more. Then of course, when we were finally able to announce we’d raised $950m [from 12 international banks, announced in late February] it was two weeks too late to counterstrike the headlines that came when Volvo announced they would reduce ownership, and everybody thought like, “Oh, this is a big crisis situation!” For us it was a non-dramatic situation.
‘The plan was always for Volvo to let off ownership. And it will still be the partner with whom we need synergies with manufacturing, the service network and so on. That was the original idea. But it was a little bit more of a surprise when it finally happened.’
Ingenlath points out that Polestar has long been developing cars outside Volvo’s sphere of direct influence. The 2 saloon, based on the same CMA platform as the XC40, has a good deal of Volvo DNA, as does the new 3 SUV. But the 4 coupe-SUV is much more Geely, and the in-development 5 (a Porsche Taycan rival) and 6 (roadster) use Polestar’s own bonded aluminium chassis technology.
‘In Geely we will have different owners of course, and that’s a good thing,’ says Ingenlath. ‘We needed a bigger free float, and this is something that is changing as we grow up as a company and develop cars not only with Volvo.
‘This has been happening for a while – looking into the group and thinking about the tech that’s there. This toolbox; this is somethi
