Polestar, the premium electric vehicle maker owned China's Geely and Volvo Cars, would like to eventually be publicly listed, but the immediate focus is on successfully launching the new Polestar 2 electric sedan, the startup's chief executive told Reuters.
"The mid- and long-term perspective indeed is to be … open for the stock market and an IPO," CEO Thomas Ingenlath told Reuters.
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"This is indeed one track that is absolutely still on and has not changed" since Volvo Cars CEO Hakan Samuelsson said in January 2019 that Polestar could eventually be listed publicly, Ingenlath added, according to the news agency.
Ingenlath said the focus now was on a successful launch of the Polestar 2, dismissing a point made that other EV makers like Nikola and Fisker had gone public or announced plans to do so without having launched a vehicle.
"It's not about the short term thinking. We have a long-term ambition," Ingenlath said. "Let's see where we are in a year's time."
Polestar would sell the 2 in China, Europe and the United States and the company was targeting annual sales of more than 50,000 within two to three years, he said, according to Reuters.
The car will compete with Tesla's Model 3 sedan but would be targeted at owners of petrol powered Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi models, Ingenlath said.
Polestar, launched in 2017, already has the low-volume halo Polestar 1 hybrid performance car that sells for about US$150,000. Deliveries of the first high volume car, the 2, have begun in Europe and will start in North America next month, officials told the news agency.
Both cars are built in China and there are no immediate plans to build in the United States, as the company needs to build sales in that market first, Ingenlath told Reuters.
The 2 will be sold through standalone retail locations called Polestar spaces that are set up in high traffic pedestrian areas, officials told the news agency. Those showrooms will be owned and operated by Volvo dealers which will also serve as the service locations for the cars.
