Posts Tagged: Polestar
EV maker Polestar cuts 15 percent of its workforce globally
Swedish electric car company Polestar is slashing its workforce by 15 percent globally. About 450 employees are expected to be let go due to “challenging market conditions.” The news comes despite its six percent increase in global car deliveries compared to 2022, according to its recent fourth quarter global fiscal report.
The company did, however, warn that it would reduce its headcount back in May 2023 which was around the same time it announced its production goals were disappointingly off by 10,000 to 20,000 cars from its initial goal. Polestar defended its decisions and explained it was “intensifying its focus” on cutting costs to make the business more efficient.
Despite delays in shipments last year, the 2024 Polestar 2 lineup is coming in strong with a suite of new upgrades, including longer mileage and faster charging. However, the company is faced with the issue that buyers might be turned off by its nearly $ 50,000 price tag when they can get newer models produced by rivals like Tesla for more than $ 10,000 less.
Job cuts across the EV sector have become commonplace, with rivals like Lucid Motors’ announcement to cut 18 percent of its workforce last year and Rivian slashing six percent. These trends might be due to the fact that supply chain issues are a huge problem in the EV industry, coupled with buyer hesitancy to invest in electric cars.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ev-maker-polestar-cuts-15-percent-of-its-workforce-globally-154941678.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
Polestar offers an early, camouflaged glimpse at its electric SUV
Polestar just offered a teaser of what might be its most important EV to date. The badge has provided its first good look (the last one was draped in a curtain) of the 3, its first SUV and its first US-made vehicle. The "premium" vehicle may be lightly disguised with QR code-like camouflage, but it looks like what you'd expect — it's a taller, roomier sibling to the 2 sedan. That's not necessarily a problem, though, and Polestar is betting on a few factors that could make the machine successful.
The company isn't shy about the target audience: this will be an EV built "in America for Americans," who keep buying upscale SUVs in large numbers. The category is likely to be one of the first to fully embrace EVs, Polestar said. The 3 should also be one of the "most climate-responsible" cars to date, and will eventually include hands-free highway driving through a combination of LiDAR and NVIDIA computing hardware.
The 3 arrives in 2022 and will join a growing EV lineup that includes the long Polestar 5 sedan. How well it fares will depend on factors like pricing and competition from its sibling brand Volvo, but it's clear Polestar is ready to be known as more than a niche brand — even if its sales goals (290,000 per year by 2025) are still modest.