Polestar Exiting US Market

[alarmguy]

Less than 6000 Polestars sold in the USA for the entire 2025 year. That is DOWN 58% from 2024 and market share down 146% from 2024
Not a great loss... now, opening the gates to BYD and others would be nice.

USA cars are way to expensive and buyers forced to buy cars loaded with options that they do not ever use or if given the choice would accept less.

 

[Astro14]

Yeah - the luxury EV market in which Polestar was positioned is pretty crowded space.

The mid-range and economy EV market is sparsely populated with options.

But that’s true for the automobile market in general. Lots of expensive options, not a lot of options in the economy segment.

 

[Pablo]

People can be bipolstar.

 

[K-Man]

The elephant in the room no one is mentioning is that Polestars are expensive. New ones are north of US$50,000. The Polestar 3 was over $60,000 until a recent incentive dropped the price.

Even with Polestar's connection to Volvo, most potential EV buyers look at that price as far too much for a vehicle made in China. $20,000 should have been the price point, not $50,000. Yeah, yeah, I know, "it's a luxury vehicle". Spare me. They're still made in China.

So it could be that Polestar was already on thin ice and would have left the US market anyway. The drop in sales figures suggest something would have had to give.

 

[Brons2]

I’m guessing this thread will be deleted because “politics”…. But anyway, Polestar is unfortunately
going away for the US market. They have been banned by the US Government.

“STOCKHOLM/WASHINGTON, June 25 (Reuters) - Polestar said on Thursday the Trump administration ‌was forcing the electric-vehicle maker to stop selling vehicles in the United States beginning in the 2027 model year as Washington ramps up its crackdown on Chinese vehicles.

The U.S. Department of Commerce did not grant Polestar authorization to sell cars under the Connected Vehicles Rule, which restricts the import and sale of cars with connected-vehicle technology linked to China beginning with the 2027 model year.”

https://www.reuters.com/business/au...-latest-strike-against-china-made-2026-06-25/

Polestar could avoid this issue by not programming their cars to call home to China. Lots of cloud companies sell compute and storage in US data centers.

Seems self inflicted to me, and I support the rule about devices not calling home to China. I block all that nonsense on my home network, China egress is blocked, along with about 50 other countries. It rarely causes issues with things not working.

 

[PandaBear]

Polestar could avoid this issue by not programming their cars to call home to China. Lots of cloud companies sell compute and storage in US data centers.

Seems self inflicted to me, and I support the rule about devices not calling home to China. I block all that nonsense on my home network, China egress is blocked, along with about 50 other countries. It rarely causes issues with things not working.

Maybe, maybe not.

We know BYD, NIO, etc won't even attempt to sell in the US and even China build Tesla won't be selling in the US. Do you really think it is just telemetry? This is part of business development that unless you have a good relationship with the government you won't know whether they will move the goal post later after you finish your development.

This is not bashing any particular government. This is all heavy industry in all government. You don't invest billions if you don't know ahead of time what the politicians would do, or you have some sort of family ties with them.

Polestar probably think that being a stepson of a Swedish mom would give them some safety but their sales volumes are not big enough to make them "too big to ban". Volvo is fine for now but if they ever drop their volume too low this can also happen to them.

 

[The_Jeff]

So let me rephrase my question in a different way: do you prefer the manufacturer to just send in an over the air update to fix your problem, or do you want to drop off a car for a day and then Uber back to the dealer to pick it up after working from home?

I would want the dealership appointment.

Back when VW Dieselgate was in the news, the forums were full of people getting their cars reflashed to V 2.0 and having them run worse and get worse mileage. If I had such a car I'd stay home and do everything in my power to avoid the reflash. I would have wanted the programming that existed when I test drove the car, new, or at least the ability to revert to the original if I didn't like the new version. Like sending me a self-service single-use "reflasher" in the mail I can plug into my OBD-II port that saves the OE config like aftermarket tuners do.

But these flashes are for the benefit of the manufacturer, not the end user. Seems scammy, like when I-phones hobbled their own performance.

 

[The_Jeff]

We know BYD, NIO, etc won't even attempt to sell in the US and even China build Tesla won't be selling in the US.

BYD will very likely be here within ten years, maybe not with their own brand, maybe through tech licensing, a merger, or by selling subassemblies.

 

[Ws6]

Good riddance

 

[Rmay635703]

not that I am against ev or the brand itself but I never seen one on the road just at a Volvo dealership. there must not be a big market here in south Carolina for them.

That’s what makes banning them very stupid, the number sold in the us is quite small, maybe they are a minor annoyance to Ferrari .

When I see something like this I wonder if they would have been exiting the market anyway and doing it this way makes hay.

BYD will very likely be here within ten years, maybe not with their own brand, maybe through tech licensing, a merger, or by selling subassemblies.

Yep and likely only in very expensive luxury cars.

Even when there was no .gov interference the only vehicles the Chinese wanted to sell in the us were expensive models

Maybe, maybe not.

We know BYD, NIO, etc won't even attempt to sell in the US

If the only requirement is “vehicles “ BYD has been selling into North America for some time including right now.

Even in the passenger car market BYD ~2013-2016ish was selling so called fleet vehicles into the US for government and other fleet customers.
Normal, Il had a BYD car dealership trying to hawk the fleet cars.

There have been various Chinese vehicles sold as street legal into the us on and off since about 2003.
At no point did China itself show any interest or market anything car like priced appropriately let alone cheap for the us market, only exception was a brief time when Kandi cars could get a full tax credit making their car actually affordable.
All others including BYD were trying to market into the lower part of upscale , while not having compelling vehicles that could compete at those prices.

 

[Legs4Arms]

The Polestar 1 was a “halo” car - clearly Volvo design language in a Grand Touring car with exceptional performance, for about $150,000. Polestar 2 was frumpy at best, with no Volvo design language, just an ugly, blocky car. But the Polestar 3 and Polestar 4 are much improved, both in looks and features, but Polestar is not Volvo.

Polestar was a tuning company in Sweden that specialized in tuning Volvos. Volvo acquired them (much like AMG was acquired by Mercedes Benz).

Later, when Volvo was acquired, the parent company, Geeley, a large Chinese car maker, used the Polestar name to launch a new line of luxury EVs.

I don’t know that I would call any of them “wild” but the Polestar 1 looked to be a really nice car, a really nice luxury GT.

Polestar 4 was an attractive alternative to the rest of the EV market.

What worries me - since Volvo is owned by a Chinese Company - is the future to ban Volvo from the US?

The Polestar 1 is gorgeous and the pundits loved it but the EV landscape is such that a $161K USD hybrid sells for $46 and change six years later. Brutal...
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2020-polestar-1-polestar-1/

 

[TomYoung]

People can be bipolstar.

Solid.