HERTZ SO GOOD: Volvo sub-brand Polestar has commenced deliveries of its Polestar 2 to rental-car giant Hertz, which ordered 65,000 units of the brand’s battery-electric sedan.What is green?
POLESTAR has commenced deliveries of its Polestar 2 model to rental car giant, Hertz.
The deliveries are the first of a 65,000-unit order that Volvo’s electric sub-brand secured in April. The car maker has five years in which to fulfil its commitment, which is recognised as the largest-ever single electric vehicle order in history, to its Florida-based client.
The Chinese-Swedish marque aims to increase annual sales to about 290,000 cars by the end of 2025. To date this year, the Gothenburg-based brand has received more than 30,000 orders from customers across the globe – on top of the cars ordered by Hertz.
“Our partnership with Hertz is an exciting milestone that provides the opportunity for a significant number of potential new customers to experience an EV for the first time, and it will be in a Polestar,” said Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath.
“With more than 55,000 Polestar cars already on the road across our 25 live markets, there is no doubt that our brand is growing at an incredible pace.”
Hertz will reinforce its partnership with Polestar via the current “Let’s go” marketing campaign with the rental company’s executive vice president of revenue management and fleet acquisition Darren Arrington saying the company was “excited to add this first delivery of Polestars to our fleet”.
In time, Polestar will include Polestar 1 and Polestar 3 units as part of the Hertz deal, the latter a recently announced electric SUV expected to make its global debut in October.
Polestar says that the battery-electric SUV will ultimately offer autonomous highway driving via best-in-class LIDAR-based Luminar sensors and NVIDIA computing power; the Swedish marque also promises that the dual-motor, all-wheel-drive and five-seat Polestar 3 will be equipped with “large battery” and offer a “range target of over 600km (WLTP)”.
Polestar was criticised earlier in the year for closing public orders of its Polestar 2 in certain regions, one of which was Australia, as it sought to fulfill its obligations with Hertz.
As reported by GoAuto in April, the EV importer seemingly exhausted its Polestar 2 supply just three months following its initial launch.
Speaking to GoAuto, Polestar Australia spokesperson said: “Due to high demand, we have sold out of current cars in Europe and Australia.
“As a result, we will close the configurator for new configured orders in these markets for the time being. We are working to take in new configured car orders and enable the configurator as soon as we can.
“When enabled, the configurator will include updates to the Polestar 2. Australian customers can still place orders for pre-configured cars.”
As of mid-June, only the Standard Range Single Motor version of the Polestar was available for order from the company’s Australian website with Long Range Single Motor and Long Range Dual Motor variants still showing as unavailable.
Keyword: Hertz Polestar deliveries commence