Swedish electric-vehicle maker Polestar cut its 2022 delivery forecast by 15,000 units to 50,000 vehicles on Thursday, hit by COVID-19 lockdowns in China.
"The reduction for 2022 is 100 percent attributable to the lockdowns in China," the electric-vehicle maker said in a statement.
COVID-19 lockdowns in China have caused supply chain disruptions for semiconductors and components widely used in electric vehicles, hurting the ability of companies to produce them.
Polestar said that, along with its partners Volvo Cars and Geely Automobile Holdings, it continues to manage supply chain challenges as it did in 2021 when it delivered about 29,000 vehicles.
The Polestar 1 is built at a factory jointly constructed by Volvo and Geely in the southwest China city of Chengdu, while the Polestar 2 is produced at Geely’s Luqiao plant in east China’s Zhejiang province.
Polestar said it had introduced a second shift at the Luqiao site and plans to recover some of the lost production later in the year. The company added it was confident of reaching delivery targets for 2023 onwards.
The Swedish company said its vehicle sales more than doubled to about 13,600 and orders more than tripled to about 23,000 in the first four months of the year, compared with the same period of 2021.
"Any short- to medium-term economic effects have not dented our goal of selling 290,000 cars in 2025 – 10 times more than we sold in 2021," Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath said.
Polestar, which was founded by China's Geely and Volvo Cars, is set to merge with special purpose acquisition company Gores Guggenheim Inc. this year.
Rental car firm Hertz Global Holdings said in April it would buy up to 65,000 Polestar electric vehicles over five years.
