Polestar is on a meteoric rise in Australia, riding a new wave of electric vehicle enthusiasm and while it might be behind other recent success stories like Cupra or Tesla, it has managed to do so in a tough supply environment and with only one non-SUV model on sale.
The Swedish design and sustainability focused automaker has managed to leapfrog some significant rivals with a far more thorough history in Australia despite having to build its brand awareness from zero since late 2021.
Up some 150 per cent year on year, Polestar now ranks ahead of Hyundai’s premium arm, Genesis, and French mainstream automaker, Peugeot, and could soon be knocking on the door of Spanish newcomer, Cupra, GMSV-backed Chevrolet, or even Mini.
Speaking to CarsGuide, Polestar Australia Communications boss Laurissa Mirabelli explained that the ongoing success of the brand Down Under had allowed it to secure more stock of the current Polestar 2 before the arrival of the heavily facelifted version later this year.
“When head office has confidence in the market, then they are happy to support increased supply,” she said. This is a significant change from the situation in late 2022, when the brand simply didn’t have enough supply to meet the sudden and increased demand for electric vehicles in Australia.
While new buyers will have to wait until July to configure the updated model, pre-configured examples of the existing cars will continue to arrive with short delivery times until then.
“There’s no specific limit, but there’s a lot,” Mirabelli said of the incoming pre-configured cars. “We had 250 cars arrive last week, and we’ve added vehicles in transit to the [online] tracker, too.”
When quizzed on the wait times, which for some rival EVs measure in years, Mirabelli said a buyer today could get into a vehicle in a very short timeframe: “It’s four to six weeks for a vehicle which has already hit the ground,” she explained. It’s a significant improvement to wait times the brand was experiencing of up to five months if ordered in December 2022.
She noted that the majority of the brand’s customers were still coming out of combustion vehicles, and weren’t necessarily refugees from electric rivals with longer waiting lists.
Polestar is also just getting started. While it has achieved these gains of a single model, the Polestar 2 which has sub-Volvo pricing, it is set to add two new vehicles in the critically important and higher-volume segments in the coming years, the Polestar 3 large SUV and Polestar 4 mid-sizer.
The 3 is based on the incoming Volvo EX90 although with a significantly sporty overhaul, while the 4 is set to play in the same space, both in terms of price and performance as the Porsche Macan, incidentally, Porsche’s best-selling model.
The Polestar 3 will arrive in the first half of 2024, in a single variant priced from $132,900 before on-road costs. Prices are yet to be confirmed for the Polestar 4, which is set to arrive late 2024 or early 2025 although Mirabelli acknowledged that volume for that model will be largely dependent on what price-point it arrives at.
It will need to sit between the Polestar 2 Long Range Dual Motor ($73,400) and the Polestar 3, suggesting a starting price in the mid-$80,000 to mid-$90,000 region, placing it well to rival the Tesla Model Y Performance (from $95,300).
Polestar is far from the only success story in 2023, with brands at the opposite end of the price spectrum, including EV-only BYD and the latest arrival to the Australian market, Chery, also posting impressive initial sales figures.
Combined with the rise of other alternate players able to secure supply in a tough market like Cupra, Haval, and SsangYong, the decline of volume for some storied Japanese and European premium automakers seems to indicate a once-in-a-generation shift in the Australian new car market.
Keyword: Polestar more than doubles sales year-on-year, now outselling Genesis and Peugeot with just one model in Australia