Polestar 3 will get a lift from U.S. factory plan

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Swedish automaker Polestar's road from niche to mainstream will take it through a new production arrangement at affiliate Volvo Cars' plant in South Carolina.

The Polestar 3, the performance electric vehicle maker's entry into crossovers, will share a platform and safety technology with Volvo's U.S.-built next-generation EX90 electric crossover. But the two vehicles will diverge in their design, driving characteristics and components.

"A guitar is a guitar," Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath said at a media event here last week. "But two different musicians could create completely different music with the same instrument."

The Polestar 3 will begin production at Volvo's plant in Chengdu, China, in the middle of next year. But production at the Ridgeville, S.C., factory is scheduled to start a year later, according to AutoForecast Solutions.

The 2.3-million-square-foot factory, an hour northwest of Charleston, is projected to build about 40,000 Polestar 3 crossovers in 2025, AutoForecast estimated.

U.S. deliveries of the Polestar 3 will begin late next year. The model is projected to become the EV maker's volume leader, with expected global sales of 77,000 in 2025.

Once South Carolina production has started, the automaker plans to provide the volume for all markets outside of China from the U.S., Polestar COO Dennis Nobelius said. "It's a very important plant for us."

The Ridgeville operation, which opened four years ago and is still underutilized, currently builds just one vehicle — the low-volume Volvo S60 sedan. Late next year, it will begin assembling the EX90 large crossover, AutoForecast said.

Supplying most of the world from a single factory will improve the economies of scale, AutoForecast Solutions Vice President Sam Fiorani said.

"Volvo needs to raise output above 80 percent of capacity in Charleston to make production profitable," Fiorani said. "The addition of the Volvo EX90 alone won't get it there."

U.S. sourcing will give Polestar a competitive geopolitical advantage. By producing the crossover in America, Polestar will avoid a roughly 25 percent China import tariff, which would have tipped its starting price above $100,000.

Domestic production also makes for more manageable logistics.

The U.S. will be the midsize Polestar 3's largest market, accounting for a third of its sales. Midsize premium crossovers were the largest premium crossover segment in the U.S. for the first nine months of this year, with nearly 100,000 more sales than compact premium crossovers, according to the Automotive News Research & Data Center.

China will consume a fourth of global production, and the rest will go to various markets across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

As much as 70 percent of the vehicle's supply chain is already operating in the Americas, Nobelius said. Suppliers include Brembo for braking, Luminar for lidar sensors and Nvidia for central power computing.

Investing in two supply chains, one in China and one in the Americas, the COO said, creates "robustness" in the supply lines and allows Polestar to "flex volumes a bit."

The Volvo plant's East Coast location and proximity to major ports make it ideal for supplying European markets.

Polestar's U.S. chief, Gregor Hembrough, said localized manufacturing will allow for quicker customer deliveries.

Hypothetically, he said, "with local production, we don't lose the eight to 10 weeks while the car is on water" being shipped from China.