Polestar confirms launch of Polestar 4 in 2023 as EV sales double in current year

Polestar will launch its third pure electric vehicle, the Polestar 4 SUV, next year after hitting sales and delivery targets for the second year in a row, says CEO Thomas Ingenlath.

“The development of Polestar 4 is on-track, very well advanced,” he said during the company’s first earnings call since listing on the Nasdaq in June.

“We will launch the car and I’m not [saying] that we [will] just go and present you [with] the design of the car. That will be the start of the launch that includes milestones that we will hit along the line in ’23.”

The Polestar 4 is a smaller SUV than its predecessor the 3, which was unveiled in October.

The annual launches are part of an ambitious roadmap that would see a Polestar 5 sport GT emerge in 2024 and a Polestar 6 roadster in 2026.

Polestar’s goal is to build a completely carbon neutral vehicle by 2030, Ingenlath said.

Hitting delivery targets

Polestar will hit its target of 50,000 vehicles delivered globally to customers this year, with 30,424 delivered in the first nine months. The remainder are built and en route to customers, said CFO Johan Malmqvist during the call.

Ingenlath said the company has hit production targets two years in a row and sales to date this year are up 100 per cent.

“Demand for Polestar 2 remains very strong. We would have easily exceeded our vehicle sales target were if not for Shanghai lockdown earlier this year. Initial reception and demand for Polestar 3 is also incredible,” he said.

This week will also see the company hit a milestone of 100,000 Polestar 2 cars out of the factory gate.

“This solidifies our position as one of two global electric vehicle players already in mass production,” he said.

“Unlike most of our peers our global ambitions are a reality not an aspiration.”

He declined to give sales or demand outlook for 2023.

Ambitious sales goals by 2025

Polestar’s main sales activities are focused on Europe, where it can get higher margins on its vehicles, but it is active in 27 countries and plans to lift that to 30 markets by 2023. It also plans to lift sales from 50,000 this year to 290,000 in the next three years, by 2025. Polestar delivered 29,000 cars in 2021.

That 2025 sales target will also see the company break even, Ingenlath said.

Polestar is not just relying on individual sales to make that three-year stretch target. In April it agreed to sell Hertz 65,000 Polestars over five years.

Third quarter profit but overall still making a loss

Polestar’s nine-month operating loss widening slightly, when fees from its Nasdaq listing are excluded, raising from $US658 million ($A984 million) in 2021 to $US709 million in 2022.

But narrowing in on the third quarter only, the company posted a profit of $US299 million after it received financial rewards for its share price meeting certain post-listing hurdles.

Revenue for the year-to-date almost doubled thanks to the jump in Polestar 2 sales from 2021, to $US1.48 billion in 2022.

“This growth was partially offset by slightly lower revenue per vehicle due to product and market mix. And to put this into context, during the first nine months of 2021, we mainly sold long-range dual motor variants of the Polestar 2. While throughout this year, we are also selling lower price variants, which have an impact on revenue per vehicle,” Malmqvist said.