Fledgling EV brand planning to out-sell Tesla with three new EVs for Australia in three years
Premium electric vehicle manufacturer Polestar has officially confirmed Australia will receive the Polestar 3, 4 and 5 in the coming three years as it aspires to overtake Tesla in outright sales volume.
In a briefing with Australian journalists in Sydney on Wednesday, Polestar head of global sales Mike Whittington confirmed the continued model onslaught from the Geely-owned EV-maker, which launched locally in late 2021 with the Tesla Model 3-rivalling Polestar 2 electric fastback.
Though Polestar was already widely tipped to offer every model it builds in the Australian market, the plan was yet to be confirmed before this week.
“There’s no intention not to bring Polestar 3, 4 and 5 to the Australian market,” Whittington said.
Based on the same SPA2 platform as the Volvo XC90 replacement, the Polestar 3 large electric SUV will be the first cab off the rank in the Chinese car-maker’s expanded portfolio, with a rough timeline of early 2023.
It will be followed by the smaller Polestar 4, a mid-size electric SUV aimed directly at the Tesla Model Y due in production by the end of 2023. The Polestar 3 and 4 are expected to bring a 600km-plus EV range.
For now, the Polestar 5 electric grand tourer will top the range when it arrives in 2024.
Polestar has been severely hampered by supply shortages during its opening months in the Australian market due to COVID lockdowns in China, the global semi-conductor shortage, shipping delays and rampant EV demand globally.
The Volvo sister brand has been able to side-step some of those issues by bringing in a big introductory shipment of pre-configured vehicles, though the immediate forecast isn’t as rosey.
“Believe me, we’re having daily discussions with the factory to get as many cars as we can,” Whittington said.
“It’s clearly a challenging time right now for all automotive brands. [But] We’re actually in really good shape compared to a lot of our competitors.
“We should get enough vehicles to hold to our annual volume plan and we want to make sure that every market gets a strategic number of cars to grow the business and expand as we move forward.”
As it stands, the waiting time for a Polestar 2 is six months, though Whittington is eager to pare that back to roughly four to five weeks as Aussie EV acceptance gains pace.
He said Polestar had capacity to ramp up production once current setbacks had passed, by running more shifts at its Chinese plant.
“I suspect we’re going to see that disruption for the balance of the year but at the moment it seems to be moving in the right direction,” he said.
More broadly, Polestar hopes to achieve 290,000 global sales by the middle of the decade, and Whittington says Australia will be an important player in getting to that milestone.
“We’re really delighted with the level of interest at the moment. We still have an Australian volume plan of around that 1800-2000 cars [annually] and we still see that as a sensible level for the market,” said Whittington.
“Demand is trending in the right direction and as long as the order intake continues to grow then we’ll expect to sell accordingly.”
Asked if Polestar expects to sell more vehicles than Tesla in Australia, Whittington responded immediately: “Yes, but it depends when. Obviously we’ve got three new cars over the next three years in terms of developing our range.
“We’ve been very clear on our growth aspirations and our investor dates, therefore once we begin to expand the range – beginning in 2023 when the Polestar 3 comes – then I think we have a real opportunity to grow our volume significantly.
“I have no idea what Tesla’s future volumes will be. It’s not a race against Tesla but we see big growth – and we want to build brand and build customer experience. We won’t do that at the cost of just trying to get volume, but we want to grow and move towards sustainable electrification on our roads.
“Beyond 2022 we haven’t done market-specific volume plans, but we certainly see a lot of growth. I wouldn’t want to speculate on volume specific to each market.”
Tesla is Australia’s biggest EV brand, with more than 12,000 examples of the Model 3 – which like the Polestar 2 is produced in China – sold last year, followed by a further 3100 in March.
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Keyword: Polestar 3, 4 and 5 confirmed for Australia