Tag Archives: Polestar

News

Polestar Posts Big Sales Gains—but Big Losses Too—as It Races Through a Turbulent 2025

Polestar’s third-quarter and year-to-date numbers are in, and the Swedish-Chinese EV brand finds itself in a familiar position: growing fast, bleeding cash even faster, and trying to convince the world it’s built for the long haul.

CEO Michael Lohscheller framed Q3 as a step forward in the company’s ongoing “commercial transformation,” pointing to a rapidly expanding dealer network and fresh retail spaces popping up across Polestar’s 28 global markets. Those efforts helped drive a 49-percent revenue jump in the first nine months of 2025, a rare bright spot in what continues to be a bruising year for the EV sector.

But as is often the case in the electric-car gold rush, revenue growth is only part of the story.

Sales Up, Prices Pressured, Margins… Ouch

For January through September, Polestar estimates it delivered 44,482 vehicles, a 36.5-percent YoY increase thanks to a stronger lineup and especially robust demand in Europe. The lion’s share of that growth comes from the company’s newer, higher-priced metal—the Polestar 3 SUV and the sleek Polestar 4 coupe-SUV.

Those pricier models helped push revenue to $2.171 billion, nearly 50 percent higher than last year. The company also leaned heavily on carbon-credit deals, booking $123 million in the first nine months alone (up from essentially zero a year earlier).

But margins tell a less rosy story. Polestar reported a negative gross margin of –34.5 percent, a result heavily distorted by a massive $739 million non-cash impairment charge on the Polestar 3 taken in Q2. Strip out that hit and adjusted gross margin still sits at –1.8 percent, slightly better than last year but still on the wrong side of zero.

Pricing pressure, rising tariffs, and residual-value guarantees in North America all conspired to drag margins underwater, and inventory write-downs didn’t help.

Quarterly Snapshot: Q3 2025

Polestar moved 14,192 vehicles in Q3, up 13.1 percent YoY, once again buoyed by Europe. Revenue climbed to $748 million, up 36 percent, with carbon-credit sales adding $33 million to the pot.

But the margin picture deteriorated again: gross margin fell to –6.1 percent (from –1.2 percent last year), and adjusted gross margin to –7.9 percent. A combination of tariffs, mix shifts, and residual-value adjustments kept the bottom line firmly in the red.

Net loss for the quarter widened slightly to $365 million, and adjusted EBITDA clocked in at –$259 million, down from –$176 million a year earlier despite ongoing cuts to marketing and headcount.

Still, Polestar entered Q4 with $995 million in cash, boosted by a $200 million PIPE investment from Geely chairman Eric Li’s investment arm and more than $3.2 billion in renewed and secured financing facilities.

A Dealer Network That’s Actually Growing

While many EV startups are shrinking their retail footprint, Polestar is sprinting in the opposite direction. The company added 11 new retail partners in Q3, bringing its global total outside of China to 141 active partners. Its hybrid agency/dealer model—once a philosophical war zone in Europe—seems to have found its legs.

Polestar also continues to lean on the global service network of Volvo Cars, giving it far wider aftersales reach than most young EV brands could dream of.

Product and Brand Highlights: The Stuff Enthusiasts Actually Care About

The financials may be grim, but on the product front Polestar is working hard to maintain momentum:

  • Polestar 5, the sleek electric grand tourer, made its public debut at IAA Mobility in Munich.
  • The Polestar 4 snagged a Red Dot “Best of the Best” design award and will become the first car to integrate Google Maps’ live lane guidance.
  • The Polestar 3 not only set a Guinness World Record for the longest journey by an electric SUV on a single charge, but also received a major 800-volt upgrade and 350-kW peak DC charging capability for the 2026 model year.
  • The first-ever Polestar Festival in the UK celebrated 45,000 Polestars on British roads.
  • The company also announced a reduction in R&D staff, part of a strategic shift toward using more existing Geely Group architectures to save development costs.

This mix of halo moments and pragmatic belt-tightening is increasingly becoming Polestar’s brand identity: equal parts moonshot and money-saving maneuver.

A Reverse Stock Split on the Horizon

In typical EV-startup fashion, Polestar’s financial restructuring continues. The company plans to execute a reverse stock split, adjusting the ratio of its ADS shares to its ordinary shares (currently 1:1). Details are expected soon, though the move is clearly aimed at stabilizing the stock and meeting exchange-listing requirements.

The Big Picture

Polestar remains one of the more credible EV-only startups in an era where credibility is hard to come by. Backing from Geely gives it scale advantages few new brands can match, and its products remain some of the sharpest, most design-forward EVs on the road.

But the company is still losing money at a rate that would make a Silicon Valley CFO wince. Impairments, tariffs, pricing challenges, and residual-value risks continue to weigh heavily on the books.

Still, the growth is real. The cars are real. And unlike several EV hopefuls that flamed out in 2024 and 2025, Polestar appears determined not just to survive—but to evolve.

2026 will tell us whether this is the turning point the company keeps promising, or just another lap in a very long race.

Source: Polestar

News

Polestar Pulls a Financial Lever: Automaker Announces 30:1 ADS Ratio Change Ahead of 2026

Polestar—the globe-trotting EV marque born from Swedish restraint and Chinese industrial muscle—is making a move that won’t change how its cars drive, but could reshape how its stock drives on Wall Street. The company has announced its intention to overhaul the structure of its American Depositary Shares (ADSs), shifting from a one-to-one share ratio to a new setup in which one ADS represents thirty ordinary shares.

If you don’t spend your afternoons parsing SEC filings, here’s the plain-English version: Polestar is conducting a 30-for-1 reverse split on its ADSs. And the company expects the change to kick in before the end of 2025.

So What’s Actually Changing?

Not the cars. Not the tech. Not the battery chemistry.

The change affects only the ADS ratio—the mechanism that allows international companies to trade their shares in U.S. markets. The ordinary shares themselves (across all classes: A, B, C-1, and C-2) stay exactly as they are. But for ADS holders, the math becomes thirty times tidier: every current ADS will convert into an ADS backed by 30 underlying shares.

When the new ratio goes live, Polestar’s Class A ADSs will continue to trade under the familiar ticker PSNY on the Nasdaq Global Market. Its Class C-1 ADSs stay under PSNYW, so there’s no scavenger hunt for new symbols. The automaker will file the requisite post-effective amendments through Form F-6 with the SEC, because even EV disruptors must obey the bureaucratic gods.

Fractional Shares? No New Pennies in Your Pocket

Polestar and its depositary bank, Citibank N.A., won’t be issuing awkward fractional ADSs. Instead, tiny fractional entitlements will be pooled together and sold off. Holders will get cash for the slivers, minus the usual suspects—fees, taxes, and expenses.

Importantly, aside from any cash payouts tied to these fractional bits, ADS holders won’t see their ownership percentage or voting power budge. No dilution. No sneak-attack restructuring.

Why Do This at All?

Typical reason: the stock price. A 30-to-1 ADS ratio change should push the share price upward by the same proportion, even if the total underlying value remains the same. It’s financial optics—albeit sometimes helpful optics. Polestar, careful not to overpromise, notes that there’s no guarantee the price will behave perfectly proportionally, because markets are moody creatures.

Still, the move signals the brand’s attempt to clean up its stock profile as it navigates a turbulent EV market. Polestar’s vehicles continue to mature—like the sharp-edged Polestar 3 and the slick, almost stealth-fighter Polestar 5—but the company is also juggling cash flow, production partnerships, and the global EV slowdown.

Polestar is adjusting its ADS structure—not its cars. The 30:1 ratio change is a financial tune-up aimed at presenting a tidier, more conventional price per share. For drivers, nothing changes. For investors, the view from the Nasdaq dash is about to look a lot different.

If only every recalibration were this painless; no over-the-air update required.

Source: Polestar

News

Polestar Plugs Into the Future: Live-Lane-Guidance Hits the Dash

You know that feeling when you’re hurtling down a three-lane motorway, Spotify’s doing its best to drown out your questionable singing, and Google Maps suddenly says, “Take the next exit” — only for you to realise that next exit is now directly beneath your left wheel? Yeah. We’ve all been there.

Polestar, ever the cool, minimalist Swede of the EV world, wants to make sure that particular panic attack becomes a thing of the past. The brand has just become the first in the industry to integrate Google Maps’ new “Live-Lane-Guidance” directly into the digital dashboard of its cars.

In short: it’s navigation that finally keeps up with your brain.

The system — debuting first in Polestar 4 models across the USA and Sweden — uses a cocktail of AI, camera feeds, and a generous helping of Scandinavian cleverness to figure out exactly where your car sits in its lane. It analyses road markings, traffic signs, and visual cues from the front camera, then projects a crystal-clear layout of the road ahead right onto the 10.2-inch digital driver display.

When it’s time to change lanes for an exit or a junction, you’ll get a visual nudge and a polite chime, long before your passengers start judging your late-braking antics.

According to Sid Odedra, Polestar’s Head of UI/UX (that’s car-speak for “the people who make tech actually usable”), this update is the fruit of a five-year partnership with Google. Together they’ve been slowly transforming Polestar interiors into some of the most digitally intuitive cockpits on the road.

Odedra says the goal here isn’t to bombard you with more information — it’s to make navigation calmer, safer, and less stressful. Think of it as Google Maps finally becoming a co-driver who’s less “backseat driver” and more “Zen monk with an algorithm.”

Even better, the feature will roll out Over-the-Air, meaning Polestar 4 owners won’t have to lift a finger — or visit a dealer. It’ll simply appear one morning like a surprise gift from the cloud. The company says the feature will expand to more markets and routes soon, bringing Live-Lane-Guidance to an ever-wider stretch of tarmac.

So, no more last-second lane dives or missed exits. Just smooth, Scandinavian serenity, even when your playlist isn’t.

Source: Polestar