Source: AutoGuideSource: AutoGuideCall it the last frontier: Electric vehicle (EV) "startups" are the only place in which brands really get to play the game of "try and see what sticks." There's never-make-its like Lordstown Motors and hold-on-to-every-last-thread hopefuls like Lucid, and somewhere in the overlap of the venn diagram lands Polestar. Volvo's EV spinoff made it so far as to launch four cars in the USA, but regulations have rendered the business model null; as such, after only a few short years, Polestar is leaving the American market.Source: AutoGuideSource: AutoGuideAdvertisementAdvertisementThere are a lot of reasons a company can fail in (or be pushed out of) a given country or region. Sadly for Polestar, that reason is "regulations." That's right: Government speak for tariffs are the culprit here. For some reason, China is a primary factor in the sale of a vehicle, it is henceforth banned as of the 2027 model year. Tariffs are usually the culprit for reluctance to sell a China-based or made vehicle in the USA as tariffs tend to make the sale prohibitively expensive, but here we're talking about "regulations." Even more curiously, Lincoln just said it's next stateside-sold Corsair will come from China. We're just as confused as you are.Chalk a lot of it up the fact that Volvo and subsidiary Polestar are owned by Chinese company Geely (which also owns Lotus, for the record). The recent addition of the "Connected Vehicle Rule" as implemented by the U.S. Department of Commerce is the cause for the change in sales locales for Polestar; this new legislation effectively bans outright the sale of "connected vehicles by connected vehicle manufacturers owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of China or Russia." Blame tech, blame the U.S. government, blame other governments; one way or another, it means the death of Polestar in the USA.Source: AutoGuideSource: AutoGuideLet's not forget what Polestar originally was: A desperate, in-house plea to add performance to Volvo's existing models. Cars like the V60 Polestars-- and the later V60 Polestar Engineered-- aren't exactly the fastest things out there, but they lit a fire under cars that were otherwise very mundane. Polestar grasped at a thread with the C30 Polestar Limited Edition in 2013 and barely clung on since, and the culmination of said branding efforts is how we arrive here.AdvertisementAdvertisementIf there's anything optimistic from this news, it's that over 90% of the cars that Polestar sold in the first quarter of 2026 were sold outside of the U.S. market. Supposedly 80% is in the European market, and the brand is already planning to build the Polestar 7 in Europe. All of this is to say, leaving the American market isn't deterring the brand or making it worry about its record 2025 sales in any way, shape, or form. Still, it's a shame that the quirky Swedish-Chinese manufacturer's concoctions won't be seen on American shores any time in the near future.Fare thee well, Polestar; we hardly knew ye.Become an AutoGuide insider. Get the latest from the automotive world first by subscribing to our newsletter here.
