The government COVID-19 lockdowns in China has forced Polestar to reduce its anticipated 2022 sales forecast from 65,000 units to approximately 50,000.
It’s a hiccup for the brand and its partners Volvo Cars and Geely, as sales of the Polestar 2 in the first four months of 2022 doubled to 13,600 units and orders had more than tripled to nearly 23,000 compared to the same period in 2021.
The performance electric vehicle brand says the reduction for 2022 is 100% attributable to the lockdowns in China. Polestar says it continues to manage ongoing supply chain challenges, as it did in 2021 when the company delivered more than 29,000 vehicles.
However Polestar says it has a rapid response planned, including a second production shift at the factory to recover some of the production loss later in the year and remains confident it will deliver its targeted sales volumes for 2023 through 2025.
Polestar says it increased its global presence to 23 markets, up from 19 at the end of 2021, putting it on track to meet its target of 30 markets by the end of 2023. New markets in the Middle East and Europe will be joined by Spain and Portugal imminently. Plans are underway to begin operations in Israel and Italy later in 2022.
It has also announced a global partnership with the car rental company Hertz to supply 65,000 cars over the next five years.
“We promised growth and we are delivering on that promise,” Polestar chief executive Thomas Ingenlath says.
“The fundamentals driving the growth in sales of electric cars remain in place and the momentum is stronger than the uncertainties we are witnessing right now. Any short- to medium-term economic effects have not dented our goal of selling 290,000 cars in 2025 – 10 times more than we sold in 2021.
“We believe our future growth will be further accelerated by our entry into the lucrative SUV market later this year with the world premiere in October of the Polestar 3 SUV. Polestar 3, which will be manufactured in the US and China, will stand out amongst other SUV offerings and boost our strong growth trajectory to take us into our next phase.”
“The SUV market is one of the highest growth and margin segments in the automotive industry, especially in the United States. Customers should be able to order Polestar 3 on the day of the premiere in October,” Ingenlath says.
Polestar intends to list on the Nasdaq in a proposed business combination with Gores Guggenheim, Inc. which is expected to close in the first half of 2022.
