There’s no shame if you’ve never heard of Polestar yet. But here’s everything you need to know to have the inside scoop on this growing electric car brand.
What is Polestar?
If you happen to be driving one, it’s a question you’ll get asked constantly. In short, Polestar is a Swedish electric performance car brand. The name stems from the Polestar racing team, which was also a Volvo performance tuner. Volvo bought the performance tuning portion of the company and the Polestar name. Polestar began producing high-performance Polestar Engineered versions of Volvo cars, created Polestar as a standalone brand and spun it off as a standalone company with an IPO in June 2022.
Who owns Polestar?
It’s complicated. Broadly, Volvo is the biggest shareholder, with just under 50% of Polestar. Affiliates of Geely chairman Eric Li own a little under 40%. Of course, Geely owns more than 80% of Volvo, and Eric Li is Volvo’s chairman. Polestar shares are traded publicly on the Nasdaq.
Financial maneuverings aside, Polestar will still be heavily partnered with Volvo. The companies will share technology, platforms and production facilities. Polestar will sell sportier cars and take on sportier development projects that (at least theoretically) wouldn’t be a fit with Volvo branding.
