On February 28, Polestar announced that it had won 9$500 million in external financing. It is reported that the financing is a three-year loan, which is jointly provided by 12 well-known domestic and foreign banks, including BNP Paribas, Natixis, Standard Chartered Bank, BBVA, HSBC, and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. In the future, it will be used to further strengthen Polestar's commercial layout and the next stage of its development plan, and promote the implementation of business strategies.
In the current context of capital returning to rationality and tightening financing, this financing shows the high expectations of the capital market for the Polestar brand, and also runs counter to the "abandonment theory" that has been widely speculated in the market about Volvo ** Polestar.
On February 23, Volvo Cars announced that it would take 62% of its 48% stake in Polestar7% is allocated to Geely Holdings, which is worth about 66300 million yuan. If the above shareholding adjustment is successfully completed, Volvo Cars' shareholding in Polestar will be reduced to 18%, and Geely Sweden Holding, a subsidiary of Geely Holding Group, will become the second largest shareholder of Polestar, officially clarifying Polestar's ownership structure and position in the Geely ecosystem.
In just one week, the landing of two blockbuster pieces of information has made the outside world begin to have a new understanding of the future development of this Sino-European "mixed-race" brand. Behind the seemingly diametrically opposed appearances, there is a conclusion that Polestar is about to embark on a new path, which means that Polestar will officially be included in Geely's territory, operating as an independent brand in the Geely ecosystem, along with brands such as Proton and Lotus.
Who is Polestar? What role will Polestar play in Geely's landscape? What is the intrinsic connection between this huge financing of nearly $1 billion? Next, this article will start with these three questions and sort out the story of what is happening and what is about to happen to this global high-performance electric vehicle brand.
When it comes to Polestar, it can be roughly divided into two phases, before 2017 and after 2017. Before that, it was a son-in-law who was raised under Volvo; After that, the pampered son-in-law, with the strong support of his "parents", began to face the bloody ups and downs of life alone.
In 1996, Swedish driver Jan Nilsson formed a team called Flash Engineering and won the championship in a Volvo 850 Super Touring in a racing race, thus starting a long-term partnership with Volvo and changing its name to Polester in 2005.
For a long time, Polestar has been a Volvo performance car manufacturer, just as M-Powe is to BMW and AMG is to Mercedes, helping Volvo to excel in many Nordic races.
In 2017, Polestar became a high-performance electric vehicle brand with a joint venture between Volvo and Geely, which was launched worldwide. However, the sales center and vision are still dominated by overseas markets such as Europe, and it was not until 2019 that it officially had the Chinese name "Polestar", which is why many Chinese consumers are very unfamiliar with it.
It can be seen that compared with Geely's other independent brands, Polestar has a very strong Nordic gene, from brand tonality to product design to personnel composition, Polestar's "mixed race" is actually not high, but more like a complete European brand.
Based on such a brand foundation, it is difficult for Polestar to truly copy the development template of Lynk & Co and Zeekr, so Geely put it in the most appropriate position, as an "enclave", a tentacle, a strategic fulcrum for Geely's layout in Europe and beyond, and promote Geely's global development process. In other words, Polestar Geely is a "dark line" in the global chess game.
As we all know, the current rapid development of China's new energy vehicles has a huge impact on the global automotive industry, and the sentiment of Europe and the entire Western countries is very resistant. For example, not long ago, The Times published an article titled "How China Plans to Invade Europe – With Electric Cars", which is full of threats, conspiracies, etc.
In September last year, the EU even went so far as to launch a countervailing investigation into Chinese electric vehicles. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament: "The global market is now flooded with cheaper electric vehicles, and huge state subsidies are artificially depressing them."
In this context, Chinese automobiles are actually facing great obstacles if they want to achieve results in Europe, a market that must be promoted by the global layout. In 2023, China's vehicle exports will reach 4.91 million units, ranking first in the world, but the European market does not account for a high proportion. According to last year's JATO data, from January to April last year, Chinese cars sold in the European market accounted for only 2% of the total number of new passenger car registrations in Europe. This means that the European market has not opened its doors to Chinese car brands.
Therefore, Geely has prepared two clues in the process of promoting the global layout. One is the bright line represented by brands such as ZEEKR and Lynk & Co, focusing on a "bridge between mountains and water". Taking ZEEKR as an example, at the Shanghai Auto Show last year, ZEEKR officially announced the launch of its European strategy and entry into the global market, with the first batch of directly-operated stores landing in Sweden and the Netherlands in 2023 and starting delivery, and entering most of Western Europe in 2026.
One is the dark line represented by Polestar, which uses the unique Nordic brand DNA to enter Europe in a more roundabout and restrained way. In fact, such operations have been verified on brands such as SAIC MG and Dacia Spring. Among them, the British car brand of SAIC MG's original body became the "mainstay" of its export to Europe after being acquired by SAIC; Dacia Spring is a brand of Renault, with 8 million customers in 44 countries and regions in Europe, ranking in the major sales lists all year round.
Looking back, 9500 million yuan is not a small number, especially since Polestar is still in the "investment period" of losses, what is the confidence of this financing to dare to enter the market? It is precisely because I saw this "dark line", and saw the Geely platform and endorsement behind this dark line, as well as the opportunities and space it may bring.
Commenting on this, Polestar CEO Thomas Inglatt said: "This financing marks a new phase in Polestar's development, and our efforts in recent years are paying off: we have improved our cost base, secured financing, and accelerated our time to market. Both Polestar 3 and Polestar 4 SUVs target the industry's fastest-growing segment and will drive strong sales and profit growth for Polestar in the second half of 2024. ”
In addition, according to the plan, Polestar's new performance GT concept car, the Polestar 5, will also be launched this year. According to Polestar, Polestar expects to achieve both sales and profit margin growth in the second half of the year as Polestar 3 and Polestar 5 are fully put into production and sales worldwide.
It is foreseeable that with the successive arrival of funds and new products from Polestar, this dazzling "North Star" under Geely's territory will continue to promote Geely's globalization process and development.