Volvo’s reduction of its stake in Polestar came around a fortnight before Polestar confirmed it had received $950 million (£750m) in new external funding – in the form of a three-year loan – and Ingenlath lamented that the headlines came in the wrong order.
“We could say more at the end of February when we announced that we had a club loan of $950m, but of course that was two weeks too late to counter-strike the big, bad headlines that came when Volvo announced it would reduce its ownership in Polestar,” he said. “Everyone thought we had a big crisis situation, so it’s unfortunate that we didn’t have this piece of news two weeks earlier.”
Polestar needs an estimated $1.3 billion (£1.1bn) in total to finish development and establish production plans for its upcoming new models, and Ingenlath is confident the company will be able to secure the $350m (£300m) that remains unaccounted for.
“Jesus, we’ve managed so much. Of course we’re confident we’ll manage the last remaining bit,” he said.
Asked whether the ongoing softening in EV demand could affect Polestar’s prospects of reaching its break-even point in 2025, as planned, Ingenlath acknowledged that the firm is “not immune” from market trends and that the drop in EV sales “is a fact that makes us work even harder in convincing people about the greatness of our products”.
