The Polestar 7 will be built in Europe, confirming a vision that the brand’s former CEO Thomas Ingenlath pushed for in 2022.
Polestar said on Jan. 16 that the compact SUV would be made in Europe but did not say at which plant.
Sister brand Volvo produces the full-electric EX40 compact SUV at its factory in Ghent, Belgium, and will open an EV-focused factory in Slovakia in 2026. The €1.2 billion ($1.23 billion) in Kosice, Slovakia, is expected to have a 250,000 capacity. According to AutoForecast Solutions, Kosice will get the contract.
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When asked last year where he saw Polestar best fitting within Volvo’s European network, former CEO Thomas Ingenlath said it wasn’t his decision. “It’s up to Volvo to see where they will put in the cars on the platform and where they would be built,” he said.
Ingenlath was succeeded as Polestar CEO by industry veteran Michael Lohscheller last October.
The Polestar 7 will compete in “the world’s fastest growing and most profitable premium segment,” Polestar said in a statement on Jan. 16. The compact SUV is expected in 2026.
In Europe last year, sales of premium compact SUVs rose 10 percent to 720,362 through 11 months.
In 2025, the automaker plans to debut the Polestar 5. The luxury sedan and the Polestar 7, combined with the Polestar 3 and 4 large SUVs that arrived last year, are expected to help the company turn around sliding sales and get reach financial breakeven, although two years later than expected.
Polestar said on Jan. 16 it expects positive free cash flow after investments in 2027, later than its previous forecast of end of 2025.
Lohscheller said he expects as much as 35 percent annual retail sales growth over the next three years. He said the brand’s order book is currently up about 37 percent after demand recovered some in the fourth quarter.
“That is obviously strong growth from my perspective based on the current market environment,” Lohscheller told Bloomberg. “We are absolutely on the right path.”
Polestar’s ambitious market expansion has been delayed. The company had planned to enter seven new markets in 2025. It will start sales in France this year. Expansion into other markets has been pushed to 2026 and beyond.
Europe production has long been in Polestar’s so-called asset-light plan because it leans on Volvo and other brands in the Geely Group to make its vehicles. Contract manufacturing of Polestar models is currently done in the U.S., South Korea and China.
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With the Polestar 7, the company will switch from a multi-platform approach to one single architecture, reducing complexity, costs and investments, it said.
“Polestar 7 will be everything our customers expect from us, both in terms of design and performance,” design boss Philipp Römers said in the statement.
The Polestar 7 is the first opportunity for Römers, who started as design chief last August, to put his stamp on the EV maker. His predecessor, Maximilian Missoni completed the designs of the Polestar 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
Missoni moved to BMW in September to oversee the design of the automaker’s upper-midsize and luxury-class models.
Polestar was spun off from Sweden’s Volvo Cars, which ceased funding Polestar last year. The EV maker is now owned largely by Chinese automotive conglomerate Geely.
“Geely will continue to support Polestar’s development and strategy implementation, including working with Polestar to secure additional equity and debt funding,” Daniel Donghui Li, Geely’s CEO, said in a statement on Jan. 16.
Polestar is expected to report fourth-quarter results on March 6.
Reuters and Bloomberg contributed to this report
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Publish date : 2025-01-16 06:42:00
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