Polestar in trouble?

[Otispunkmeyer]

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportat...

So a few days ago analysts from Norway and Sweden basically saw Volvo's stake/ownership of the polestar brand as worthless. Today Volvo has announced that its going to divest itself of the 48% stake it holds and hand it all over to Geely (who also owns Volvo).

Perhaps it's a little bit of wooden dollars given the ultimate main holder of both brands but it would seem like Volvo would not be involved with the running of the brand or the financing. That would fall the Geely, who thus far, have said they'll handle it.

But going forward I don't think it looks particularly rosy for them. 450 jobs have been cut. They missed their already cut back targets for 2023.

They rent a lot of office space and facilities where I work and are having some pretty substantial R&D facilities built too. So I kinda want them to stick around!!! Interesting times ahead.

[SDK]

Polestar are fine
This ‘Polestar going bankrupt’ rumour is spreading because click-bait YouTubers are posting videos about stuff they don’t understand.

From Polestar

https://media.polestar.com/global/en/media/pressre...

[Otispunkmeyer]

SDK said:

Polestar are fine
This ‘Polestar going bankrupt’ rumour is spreading because click-bait YouTubers are posting videos about stuff they don’t understand.

From Polestar

https://media.polestar.com/global/en/media/pressre...

I never said they were going bankrupt. And these stories have been posted by reputable places like the FT, Bloomberg and Reuters. They're not going under but things are clearly a bit difficult at the moment. I do wonder if things will be scaled back (like the big investment at our site). Geely will take the reigns as they have said, so let's see what the score is in a couple of years time.

I hope so because I really like their designs. The new 4, from the rear, does look properly futuristic. Can't wait to see them on the road.

Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Thursday 1st February 20:24

[poppopbangbang]

SDK said:

Polestar are fine

They are very much not fine, but also they are not going bankrupt any time soon unless Geely don't want it anymore, the significant reduction in key engineering staff (a lot at the Polestar facility at MIRA which only completed setup last year) is clearly going to impact future model development and LCI of existing models with a lot of talent that had been acquired from other OEMs now returning to those OEMs with a direct and detailed understanding of Polestars product and business strategy. A lot of those employed at that end of the "industry" wouldn't even consider a role at Polestar given what has gone on over the last few months and it's very hard to develop a product without good, experienced engineering staff.

Regardless of who it is building cars is hard and building profitable electric cars is really, really, properly fking hard. Polestar are caught in the middle of that and to be fair they're not the only one.

Volvo clearly has other ideas about how to build a BEV and is doing a better job at it from a business perspective, they appear to have margin (albeit slim) and a range of BEV that is out there and selling with that margin - in that scenario you can't blame them for exiting responsibility for Polestar (financial and management) and cracking on with the profitable product that is directly aligned with their brand rather than attempting to develop a whole new one, potentially at the expense of the existing.

Things are brutally difficult within the automotive industry at the moment and many are scaling back their liability around new brands and products to protect the core ones. What happens to the new brands after that is what we are finding out now.

[ajap1979]

I wonder how the dissociation with Volvo will affect servicing, repairs etc?

[Funkstar De Luxe]

poppopbangbang said:

They are very much not fine, but also they are not going bankrupt any time soon unless Geely don't want it anymore, the significant reduction in key engineering staff (a lot at the Polestar facility at MIRA which only completed setup last year) is clearly going to impact future model development and LCI of existing models with a lot of talent that had been acquired from other OEMs now returning to those OEMs with a direct and detailed understanding of Polestars product and business strategy. A lot of those employed at that end of the "industry" wouldn't even consider a role at Polestar given what has gone on over the last few months and it's very hard to develop a product without good, experienced engineering staff.

Regardless of who it is building cars is hard and building profitable electric cars is really, really, properly fking hard. Polestar are caught in the middle of that and to be fair they're not the only one.

Volvo clearly has other ideas about how to build a BEV and is doing a better job at it from a business perspective, they appear to have margin (albeit slim) and a range of BEV that is out there and selling with that margin - in that scenario you can't blame them for exiting responsibility for Polestar (financial and management) and cracking on with the profitable product that is directly aligned with their brand rather than attempting to develop a whole new one, potentially at the expense of the existing.

Things are brutally difficult within the automotive industry at the moment and many are scaling back their liability around new brands and products to protect the core ones. What happens to the new brands after that is what we are finding out now.

The split between reduction of UK/SWE/China staff hasn't been detailed, this is speculation.