Polestar, according to the original mission statement, is an electric premium brand that puts performance and design at its core. To which we might also add “it’s not Tesla” as an increasingly potent selling point.
New boss Michael Lohscheller, to the best of our knowledge, has never waved a chainsaw around in a meeting, but he’s certainly prioritizing efficiencies and commercial uplift—and he needs to.
Polestar sold 44,851 cars globally last year, a 15 percent decline compared to 2023, but retail sales are up by 76 percent in Q1 this year (from relatively small volumes), bolstered by the arrival of the 3 and 4—and Elon Musk’s monumental hubris.
The fact remains, though, that while the brand’s gross margin has now thankfully flipped from negative to positive, Polestar has still lost a thumping $190 million so far this year, while securing $1.7 billion in credit since end of last year. The 4 is very much here as part of the plan to reverse such fortunes, and as this model isn’t made in China it can look to US consumers for help.
The 4 bears the imprimatur of Polestar’s rigorous design-oriented philosophy. The previous boss, Thomas Ingenlath, rose to prominence from the automotive design world, and his de facto number two, Max Missoni (now a senior designer at BMW), was tasked with delivering a coupe svelteness that the 4’s underfloor battery and overall architecture didn’t readily lend itself it to.
Rear View Filler
The solution, then, is eye-catching. Move the header rail back so that it sits behind the second row occupants’ heads rather than above them, creating an unusually generous amount of headroom in the rear. Luxuriate in the benefits brought by a wheelbase that’s a solitary millimeter shy of three meters. Then delete the back window.
The result is a pleasingly fastback silhouette and a uniquely cocooning rear compartment. Any incipient claustrophobia is offset by the presence of a huge panoramic roof and the option of electro-chromatic glass.
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