The news that Ford was switching over to Tesla’s simpler NACS charging standard caused a stampede of carmakers to switch over. Pundits, including moi, thought this was great news and looked forward to more consumers getting access to the Supercharger network. It’s been more than a year, and barely any non-Tesla owners can actually use the Supercharger network. An uncharitable person might see more than a coincidence in this.
The theme of this morning’s installment of The Morning Dump is: Transition is painful.
Polestar’s transformation from Volvo-tuner to global EV company has been a rocky one. The product isn’t bad, but the economics are. It’s no surprise then that founding CEO and designer Thomas Ingenlath is being replaced. Hyundai also has great products, but the brand, too, is finding it more and more difficult to transition to an EV-only world, so they are promoting a hybrid strategy to grow sales.
All of these companies will have to continue to find ways to transition their lineups into more affordable ones as car sales continue to face the headwinds of economic uncertainty and higher interest rates.
Is Elon Musk Purposefully Slowing Down Supercharger Access To Non-Tesla OEMs?
Our first dispatch today comes from my local paper, the New York Times, which refuses to come out and claim that Tesla is purposefully slow-rolling access to its Supercharger network in an effort to stem sales losses at the EV automaker. Why? Mostly because it’s extremely difficult to know the truth in this situation.
It was big news last summer when Ford, and then pretty much everyone else, took Tesla up on its offer to switch from the non-Tesla CCS charging standard to Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS). The big shift came after Ford CEO Jim Farley had his ‘Road to Damascus’ moment on a trip around the West Coast in a Ford F-150 Lightning. He experienced the same charging issues every non-Tesla owner was quite familiar with.
The promise of an NACS-switch was the promise of Supercharger access. That is, in fact, specifically what Tesla was promoting when it first invited everyone else to hop on board:
Network operators already have plans in motion to incorporate NACS at their chargers, so Tesla owners can look forward to charging at other networks without adapters. Similarly, we look forward to future electric vehicles incorporating the NACS design and charging at Tesla’s North American Supercharging and Destination Charging networks.
How’s that going? From the NYT:
But more than 12 months later, Tesla’s network, with nearly 30,000 fast-charging plugs in the United States and Canada, remains largely inaccessible to most people who don’t drive Teslas because of software delays and hardware shortages.
The delays have fueled speculation that Mr. Musk was having second thoughts about opening up Tesla’s network, possibly because he was worried that access would help other automakers sell battery-powered models and lure customers from Tesla, which has suffered from declining sales.
You won’t get any answers from Tesla, who refused to answer press questions as they pretty much always do, and you won’t get it from other automakers because:
[O]ther automakers have been reluctant to speak in detail, apparently because they do not want to antagonize Tesla and Mr. Musk.
As with all things Tesla and Musk, your interpretation will stem mostly from your preexisting notions of Musk.
IF you think Musk is a genius, then you might see a 5D chess move wherein the CEO persuaded other automakers to adopt his standard with the promise of Supercharger access only to rope-a-dope them and withhold it at the last minute. IF you think Musk is an evil genius, you might see the same thing working here.
There’s some logic to this, as Tesla, while still the overwhelming sales leader, is bleeding share to other automakers and making less money than it used to on its existing cars. Superchargers represent a great “moat” that makes Tesla cars way more appealing, and it’s curious that Tesla decided to just walk away from it. What happens when Superchargers are suddenly overwhelmed by non-Tesla cars?
IF you think Musk is a mercurial dipshit who blusters his way through a series of rash decisions you might just see this as a side effect of Musk firing his whole Supercharger team and then having to slowly hire them back. Could this be one of the reasons why the software integration with other automakers has been so slow?
IF you don’t have any opinions either way, maybe you just think that “Transition is painful,” as one charging expert pointed out. Tesla has to onboard a lot of automakers and spin up a lot of adapters and it’s just hard.
While Tesla didn’t respond to the reporter’s questions, it did the thing where it coincidentally tweeted something that sort of answers the question:
Congrats GFNY team ramping NACS adapter production to 8k units per week – OEMs are also ramping suppliers. pic.twitter.com/BemW2wV9rH
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) August 23, 2024
That’s not nothing.
Say Hello To Polestar’s New CEO
In theory, making a car designer the CEO of your company sounds like a good idea. They design cars! They’re cool! They get it! In practice, it doesn’t always work out for the best. Volvo designer Thomas Ingelnath was the original CEO of the reimagined Polestar and, while the cars look good, the financial performance of the company has been subpar, with parent/sister company Volvo essentially dumping its investment (both will still work together and both are still owned by Chinese automaker Geely).
Ingelnath has resigned from the company, and in his place is an exec you might remember. From Polestar’s release today:
Michael Lohscheller, a seasoned automotive leader with extensive experience in driving operational excellence and strategic growth, will assume the role of CEO. Thomas Ingenlath, who has served as CEO since Polestar’s inception and successfully positioned the brand for its next chapter, has resigned, with the change effective 1 October 2024.
Michael Lohscheller, who has previously served as CEO of Opel, VinFast and Nikola, brings a wealth of expertise in the automotive industry, particularly in navigating competitive markets and scaling businesses. Polestar will be ambitiously expanding its global footprint and its position as a leader in the premium electric vehicle market in the coming years.
Winfried Vahland, Polestar’s incoming Chairman, says: “Polestar has experienced an exceptional start-up phase and with a broader model line-up, Michael Lohscheller is the ideal leader to guide Polestar into its next chapter. His deep industry knowledge, especially in driving operational excellence, developing a coherent product strategy and strengthening the global market presence will be instrumental in the next chapter of Polestar’s growth. With Scandinavian heritage, passion and performance Polestar will set new standards for future individual mobility. Geely remains deeply committed to Polestar’s success, and with Michael at the helm, supported by a dynamic leadership team, we are well-positioned for continued innovation and growth.”
We’ll just gloss over the VinFast and Nikola bits and focus on the Opel part. Here’s why his term there is well-remembered, courtesy of Automotive News:
Lohscheller is credited with ending financial troubles at Opel, which lost nearly a billion dollars a year for two decades under General Motors ownership. Opel showed a 4.7 percent operating profit under Lohscheller’s leadership in 2018, the brand’s first full year under PSA ownership. Opel is now part of Stellantis.
The profit came two years ahead of the goal set in the PACE turnaround plan, which Lohscheller helped to create. He pushed Opel to reduce fixed costs, streamline its product range, prepare for tough emissions targets, and work out agreements on job reductions — with few forced layoffs.
Polestar has some interesting products in the pipeline, so hopefully Lohscheller can get the company pointed in the right direction.
Hyundai: Hybrids Are Becoming The Default Engine Choice
We were excited to see Hyundai offer a high-mpg, lower-cost Elantra Hybrid yesterday. It turns out this is part of a larger move by Hyundai to increase its market share with hybrids.
“Recently, the speed of conversion to electric vehicles has been slowing. As a result, demand for hybrids is increasing, and hybrids are becoming a basic option rather than an alternative to internal combustion engines,” said Hyundai Motor President and CEO Jaehoon Chang.
Hyundai said it planned to double its hybrid lineup to 14 models as it expected a surge in hybrid demand, especially in North America. It did not provide a timeline for the release of the new cars.
Year of the Hybrid. Many people are saying it.
Car Sales Still Suppressed By Affordability
Here’s the chart that I’m thinking about today:
It’s a graph of this year’s sales, and you can see they’re still slightly higher, as cars have become slightly more affordable. I think there’s a ton of pent-up demand in the market, and I believe the key factors are interest rates and job uncertainty. Hopefully, post-election we get some better signals on jobs. The Fed has also indicated it’s likely to begin a slow rate-cutting cycle in September.
Until then, I agree with S&P Global Mobility’s take here:
On a volume estimate of 1.42 million units, US light vehicle sales in August are expected to be up more than 7% year over year and grow more than 11% from the month-prior level. This translates to a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 15.2 million units, a moderate reading in a market continuing to wait for sales levels to advance more strongly.
“New vehicle affordability remains the biggest obstacle preventing further advances in the pace of auto sales,” said Chris Hopson, principal analyst at S&P Global Mobility. “The current environment of still-high interest rates and slow-to-recede vehicle prices are translating to still-high monthly payments and little progress for new vehicle demand levels.”
Yup.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
There’s a funny line in Sabrina Carpenter’s new album about a guy, uh, servicing himself to Leonard Cohen lyrics. It’s meant to be a dig, and it’s a great one, but it did make me wonder what lyrics those might be? I’m going to guess “I’m Your Man.” You can hear the full version of the song here, but I’m partial to the use of the song in Nanni Moretti’s great autobiographical film “Caro Diario.”
The Big Question
We’ve talked about Elon Musk enough, what does Polestar have to do to survive?
Top graphic base image: swisshippo/stock.adobe.com
“Preexisting Notions of Musk” was, if I’m not mistaken, a popular fragrance in the late ’70s to early ’80s.
I thought it was a song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
I was talking about this Tesla charger sharing with some friends a few months ago. Not only the implementation, but the way in which Telsa would do the payments for charging was what kept coming up in our discussion. It shouldn’t be hard, but it kept circling back to large, slow companies trying not to pay too much for something and it dragging out.
Musk may be a genius, but he sure isn’t showing it.
Dude has been studied, he is closer to a dumb psycho than a genius.
On the Supercharger access issue, my guess is that the delays are mostly due to each car manufacturer having it’s own proprietary charging software. It will take time to get their software to talk to Tesla’s software and play together. It’s just not as simple as having a plug adapter. Combine that with Tesla laying off the Supercharger team and this should not be a surprise to anyone.
Wait, isn’t it against the rules to not directly blame Musk? It’s probably just a petulant Musk trying to break the agreement.
If your name is Matt Hardigree, then yes.
Like fucks sake Matt, “refuses to come out and claim?” I rag on the NYT for lacking journalistic integrity a lot, but this is one time they actually displayed it. The truth is difficult to know, and as you mention, integrating a whole bunch of competing software standards into one is a difficult task, to put it mildly. Without more detailed information, the NYT has no grounds to speculate why the transition is taking so long (IMO, it’s not taking long at all, I would expect like 5 years minimum before it’s universal for everybody), and simply reporting the facts is a very reasonable thing to do.
I don’t think Hardigree directly blamed Musk. He just said what most people are thinking, while recognizing that there could be other issues. Honestly, I think the coverage here is very evenhanded when it comes to Musk/Tesla. The criticism they do levy on Musk/Tesla really does seem to be deserved in most cases.
My comment was just because much of the commentariat likes to blame Musk a lot of the time.
I think he directly blamed Musk in the same fashion journalists always do- by saying someone else is saying it and conveniently downplaying other possibilities. The headline of the section is “Is Elon Musk Purposefully Slowing Down Supercharger Access To Non-Tesla OEMs?”. That is not a headline in the quoted article, and what little I read without the paywall simply quotes speculation without providing a source or hard data.
As you noted, and equally plausible explanation is software integration across multiple competitors for something of this scale is extremely difficult, but I suppose “engineering hard” does not make much of a headline.
Engineering is significantly less hard when you refrain from firing the entire division that was doing the engineering. To not portray Musk as the unhinged ignoramus that he is would be journalistic malpractice.
Ok Stan.
It’s not a bunch of competing standards. CCS1 and NACS have defined standards that companies implement to charge their vehicles. They may be poorly implemented but not competing.
The protocols are all defined and established standards. The companies may have had implementations but a certificate authorizes the vehicle and they could probably get it running quickly but optimal performance could take time.
Is it malice or incompetence, why not both? Fire everyone, no one assigned to the project. Hire new staff and never assign anyone.
The original problem was allowing Tesla to use it own NACS connector. They should have made them use/create a NEMA standard connector. Almost every one in US uses a NEMA5-15P every day.
Polestar should make a $25K EV? Lol!
Who should have made them?
Radio Shack. It would have saved the entire company.
I hope you’re joking. The biggest NEMA connectors can only provide a fraction of the power transfer that a modern EV needs, never mind the electronic requirements that are unique to the EV use case (at least for now). That’s why separate EV charging standards (and not just Tesla’s) exist.
They should just follow the EU and make everybody use USB-C connectors. 😉
And regulate the acceptable curvature of bananas.
I think Tesla is realizing that opening their charging network and NACS to non-Teslas doesn’t pay off as much as they first thought.
More cars charging at Tesla stations means more wear and tear plus longer wait times for actual Tesla owners.
NACS adoption in North America won’t help it’s adoption in Europe any.
Personally I’d charge Non-Tesla BEVs a charging tax to charge at Tesla chargers or raise the price of Tesla Charger Charging and offer discounts to Tesla owners.
That’s exactly what’s happening now to the third party EVs that have been allowed access. They pay either a monthly fee for the same rate as Teslas, or a higher per KWH rate than Teslas.
Glad to hear it.
The EU mandated CCS2 and I don’t think NACS supports 3 phase AC charging.
What does Polestar need to do to survive?
Build a big freaking SUV.
Kinda like that new SUV that gave (and totaled) my dad’s Corolla major damage (driver-side shoved in 1+ft) but literally drove away with just a couple of front bumper paint scrapes once it was said and done.
Another dinosaur with too much power on the road and a 5-star safety rating because it just crushes the other car. great…
Businesses sell what the market buys.
The market seems to be holding out for smaller and less expensive options.
Now that’s a viable answer to Matt’s question.
I’m not holding my breath for supercharger access. EA’s network is OK around here. I charge away from home so rarely that it doesn’t bother me. I would actually take a slower charge somewhere else before installing Tesla’s app (I assume there’s an app for charging, right?)
I heard some automakers would let you pay through your own car or their app. I would prefer cash or card but it’s better than everyone being forced on one app which is a recipe for evil (like Google).
I have a Hyundai, and it comes with free EA charging for two years. I have to use the Electrify America app to connect to one of their chargers.
I think Ford was offering a streamlined experience with the Mach-E and EA, but I don’t know if that ever worked. I remember Matt Farah doing a video about this, and it did not work in his case.
Plug and charge is an ISO standard and does work on the Fords now. Works for Rivian and Ford on the Tesla Superchargers they can use as well. Plug and charge also works on my Tesla with some EVGo stations along with the supercharger network. Not every automaker has implemented it.
What is wrong with me that I want slightly niche-y Swedish cars, which want now seems to extend to allegedly Swedish cars made in China? The first time I drove the Polestar 2, its layout took me back to my lamented 1989 Saab 900. That feeling immediately made me want it. My local Volvo dealer let me understand, without words, that they don’t want to be bothered with any damn Polestar service. Given that the nearest Polestar “space” is hundreds of miles distant, I’m driving a Volvo PHEV now.
Yeah the dealer servicing is one thing I wish was better. Thankfully in the Seattle area, the service team here has been great, but long-term I would love to see some expansion of capability, especially as the overall ownership rates continue to increase.
I got the Polestar 2 for the same reason — always loved slightly niche Swedish cars, and weirdly enough, the vibe still applies (just modernized) for Chinese-owned Scandinavian vibes. Not sure if I would again–it’ll depend a lot on how they’re able to pivot the company in the next 5-10 years over the course of ownership. If they don’t have much compelling, I think I’d probably want to just get a Volvo with all the increase in parts availability and general service networks here.
As I’m sure you already know, what’s wrong with you is that you want something to fill the saab shaped hole in your heart. I know, I feel it too.
Like Adrian Clarke would say, I feel seen.
Same-ish. The nearest Polestar “Space” to me is about 100 miles away. Which wouldn’t have been an issue in another time of my life, but I’m dad now, so NOPE. I value my family time more than anything else.
Instead I bought the Polestar 2’s crossover sibling: the XC40 Recharge. And there’s a Volvo dealer 15 miles from my house.
Yep.
Yeah this is my concern if I get a Polestar 2 no service centers around being outside Chi town in Northwest Indiana the closest spaces are Detroit and Columbus so yeah not close. I will most likely get an EV if I stay where I work as I can charge at work for free and currently the Polestar 2 is the only thing interesting that is affordable to me.
How are you liking it? I had a ’21 on lease that I just returned. Inefficiency and other things made me send it back after 3 years, but overall it was a great intro to EV first car.
I’m loving it. It’s not my first EV, so I knew what I was getting into. It’s mainly a fun commuter appliance for me, which suits it perfectly.
Enjoy! They upped the efficiency on the ’22+ models, but ultimately the staggered tire setup, no V2H or 120V outlet, wobbly/bobbly ride, proprietary wiper connection, and constantly malfunctioning Amazon Music app kept me from trying my luck at a diff one.
Have you considered switching to profoundly niche-y Swedish cars and allegedly Swedish cars made in the Netherlands? I guarantee from personal experience that you won’t have to worry about dealership issues:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52805496441_eb89b3315b_c.jpg
Profound indeed. There’s a very nice 96 driven by someone in my town, so charming. The charm includes the sound and the smell. I admit I don’t recognize the Volvo. Both lovely.
Thanks! The 96 is a ’67 two-stroke. The other one’s a 1976 Volvo 66 GL, which is essentially a rebadged DAF 66 arising from Volvo purchasing DAF and renaming the company Volvo Car BV, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Volvo AB:
https://live.staticflickr.com/5769/22284030105_7bb0c2d4a1_c.jpg
Everyone reading this thread should look at your driveway photo. Very cool. And the DAF is on topic with Jason’s Cold Start.
I would have to drive past three Tesla service centers and two Volvo dealers to get to my closest (and terribly inconvenient) Polestar shop.
Ferrari, Lamborghini and Lotus all have dealerships more conveniently located. If they’re going to be inconvenient, their cars need to be more special.
When Tesla first announced that they were going to open their network, I thought that was a terrible idea. Then my brother said that Tesla would probably stick an extra 20% EV convenience fee and call it good. That made me appreciate that move. Now, it looks like this is another Tesla move that wasn’t thought out at all. They had a huge lead and have somehow managed to just about piss it all away.
What a giant blunder it was for these CEO’s and boards to agree to this deal with Elmo. They should be fired, but instead they’ll get raises.
If they had agreed to a deal at least they’d have some recourse, it sounds like they agreed to switch without having any sort of plan or timeline for getting on the network.
Having done some work with Tesla, specifically their supercharger network team, the delay is the least surprising thing I’ve read today. The group was very guarded, condescending, and extremely mercurial – all the hallmarks of folks that don’t work well with others. It might be easy to chalk the delay up to Musk doing 5D chess or being petulant, all of which could be true, but if my experience is anything to go by, I suspect the delay is largely caused by the Tesla engineers being as willing to work with folks outside of Tesla as Tesla’s non-existent PR team is to respond to journalists.
Can’t say I’d blame Tesla for realizing the primary advantage they still had over the competition was access to Superchargers. Why bail out the competition after you invested in the better infrastructure?
And I don’t know what Polestar is supposed to be. They sell a standalone EV. They are still a “performance” trim level for Volvos. It’d kind of make sense if the Polestar EV was some sort of halo sports car, show off their performance chops.
But instead if it is a fairly average sedan, and apparently a CUV like thing? Who even knew they had another model?
“We’ll just gloss over the VinFast and Nikola bits … “
Should we really do that? Lohscheller somehow managed, against all odds, to take Nikola from an industry joke to actual production and sales. He could be the very reason there’s a functional Nikola at this moment at all. I’d say that’s some pretty good cred and worth mentioning.
As for his time at VinFast, it was brief enough to be too hard to tell.
Part of being a good turnaround leader is knowing when to fold ’em. That can mean ending projects, laying off divisions, or just going “hahahaha nope” once you see what’s underneath.
Regarding the delays in opening Superchargers to other brands: “I am shocked, shocked I tell you!”
WHO COULD HAVE POSSIBLY FORESEEN THIS!
An electrifying observation.
Polestar should improve their service departments, using Volvo dealership is a pain. The local Volvo does not care about Polestars as much they care their Volvos they sell. The same parts are more expensive with Polestar, and their resale values dropped like a rock.
Polestar offers what Tesla is missing from a design/quality perspective but they are behind on software, battery tech and price. With EVs, software is a significant part of the experience, and Polestar software updates are hit or miss.
My lease ends on December and I am not renewing.
Other than the service center hassle, what about the software do you not like? I’d love to pick up a used Polestar 2 as a replacement for my wife’s XC60 at some point, but maybe not if it’s too much of a pain?
They bring new glitches not there before, or how a recall was issued for the rear camera not working, fixed with a software update but then the issue remained there lol
Looks like there’s a service center like 40 minutes from me in Franklin TN, so it wouldn’t be too bad, but it sounds like the software needs more time in the oven so to speak…
Them not being just additional models of Volvos is a huge handicap in the USA which I think is a cultural difference from “let’s make this a new marque!” China, but also a logistical issue they just didn’t weigh heavily enough. There are two Volvo dealerships in my area but the closest Polestar service center is at least an hour away. Accordingly, seeing a Polestar is very rare. I see craptons of Bolts (and own one) because the Chevy dealers here are EV-friendly.
Don’t forget that BP quickly started recruiting the fired supercharging team.
The superchargers are probably more profitable than actually selling cars at this point.
I do agree that the charging side will probably be more profitable than selling cars. Once more people get the low cost EVs figured out, it will be a margin squeeze like compact ICE cars are.
If Musk hadn’t fired the supercharger team, I think 5-10 years from now they would have be selling the equipment and service plans to existing gas stations and businesses. Including transferring ownership of existing sites to the businesses that host them. There isn’t any long term benefit to owning the equipment and leasing the sites. Tesla only got into that because no one else was building charging infrastructure. Laying off the supercharger team was still a short sighted mistake. They should have started transitioning to a different business model.
They did! They’re transitioning to being an AI and robots company lol
Maybe there have been other polls out there with different data, but it seems that Polestar has consistently been ranked at the bottom (worst end) of number of issues per whatever number.
They have positioned themselves as a premium electric offering. While this is admirable, I don’t think they are selling enough to be viable. I know that aiming for a lower price point will be a deviation from their normally ‘up-market’ position, but that might get them a little more market share. I’m not saying go for the “Leaf” customers because after all, who wants those types of people at a Polestar/Volvo dealership.
Polestar should just drop the name and use “Volvo”.
If Polestar was at one point supposed to be Electric Volvo, I’m not sure why they exist today given Volvo is committing to a fully electric future. Chinese love themselves some brands though so my guess is someone at Geely thinks they can somehow differentiate the two. Given Polestar has almost no brand cachet outside of knowledgeable enthusiasts, I’d say this is gonna be a tough go.
I changed my perception of “# of reported issues” when I learned most issues were simply dumbasses who don’t know how to use the AV/nav system.
You are definitely on to something there. I think one source of these false positives is that the AV/Nav is working as designed, but the design isn’t that good (intuitive/clear).
A personal example is the seat memory in my car. Since it has a driver (facial) recognition system not available in lower trims, the normal buttons on the door for setting the seat position (Driver 1 vs. Driver 2) and the key fob memory settings steps, don’t work. You can go through the door buttons and key fob motions, but the seat position isn’t retained. Turns out you have to go through 3 levels in the menu to get to the setting. Unless you look through your manual and know to use Option 3 method, you are SOL.
Something to be said for RTFM…
Agree. Volvo has a brand message that has resonated for decades: safety and comfy seats. Polestar should embrace their Volvo-ness as much as possible.
I have a friend who kept a new Polestar 2 for a week and then returned it. Main issue was visibility — he said he found the lack of rear and rear quarter visibility scary and didn’t understand why there wasn’t a rear wiper on what is essentially a fastback. Other lesser issues were 1) almost every function is touchscreen and 2) interior felt cheap. I suppose the lesson is don’t buy a car on the internet that you haven’t driven. I have to hand it to Polestar for taking the car back after a week just because he didn’t like it.
Big brain move. Intentionally make the EV experience worse for non-Tesla owners, to encourage them to buy a Tesla instead.
Tesla owns the standard, what did they think was going to happen?
Realistically, the supercharger network is Tesla’s biggest innovation. I bought my Model 3 primarily because it is far easier to charge away from home than a non-Tesla EV. Tesla’s vehicles are nice, but they are not necessarily better than other EVs.
I could see opening up the supercharger network if Tesla viewed charging as a major source of profit going forward (which it may be), but it definitely will reduce demand for their vehicles.
That’s certainly one of the resumes of all time.
Fail forward?
If his resume is in order, I’m not optimistic about the future of Polestar
Next Stellantis CEO confirmed?
I would bet a not insignificant sum that somewhere on this guy’s resume is the quote “Move fast and break things”
Polestar needs to convince the Swedish government to outlaw all non Polestar EV sales in Sweden. That should ensure their survival until they can figure this international market thing out.
I don’t know how this would work, but I’d hope it’d lead to a Saab revival, presumably one not involving GM.
Polestar is premium and Saab (as a Geely family brand) is the remainder of the Swedish market.
I don’t know why they’d do that, considering no Polestars are actually made in Sweden and never have been
Musk has to keep other manufacturers off his Superchargers because soon every single person on Earth will own a robot and robotaxis will drive around those robots and AI!
I don’t even know if this is a joke anymore.
The great state of 05LGT casts all none of its votes for “mercurial dipshit”.
Hybrids should have been the default engine choice in everything other than sports cars and BOF trucks/SUVs a decade ago.
The most ferocious hypercars are hybrids.
Except BOF trucks/SUVs? Why would you not want the best motor for low-end torque in a vehicle that has the best use case for low-end torque?
Complexity. If you’re actually using a BOF truck or SUV as intended and towing, hauling, off roading, etc. then I think a naturally aspirated ICE engine is still probably your best bet for longevity. However if you’re buying one of those things to be a parking lot princess then hybrid is way, WAY better for sure.
Eh, 10 years ago maybe there was a case to made for keeping it simple. But Toyota has demonstrated long-term reliability of hybrid systems and the dual benefits of better gas mileage plus increased low-end torque make it a no-brainer to be offering these today as low-cost/no-cost options.
I’d agree with your example but the twin turbo V6 that’s part of their iForce Max powertrain has been a disaster so far. It also doesn’t seem to have any real world fuel economy benefits. Doug just bought a new Sequoia and drove it cross country…it averaged 17 MPG.
The one that’s been paired with the 4 popper isn’t proving to be too great either. A couple reviewers I watch have had the Land Cruiser lately and they seem to average mid to high teens in practice.
Is that worth the added complexity? I don’t know, I guess it comes down to use case. I’m actually a big fan of hybridizing all the things but the benefits in big SUVs and trucks seem to be small compared to what you’re giving up.
Polestar, just shouldn’t be a car company. They need to go back to just being the Volvo tuning brand.
I agree, but as Matt mentioned, Volvo kind of dumped it to avoid the losses most companies not named Tesla are dealing with their EV units. As for Polestar’s survival? That’s tricky. Maybe it can go extra hardcore mode on leasing deals in the US and get Geely to subsidize costs internationally to make it more competitive with other Chinese-owned EV brands?
They could have sold more at higher prices if they could be bought and serviced at every Volvo dealer.
I’ve been questioning the wisdom of turning Polestar into a separate brand from day one, regardless of whatever ownership structure it has, really don’t see what the Polestar name can accomplish that the Volvo name can’t do, especially with all car companies moving to 100% electric in the next 9 years anyway
the problem with polestar is that they’re still mostly using the volvo design language so it’s totally unnecessary. if it’s to isolate the china-made EVs from the main brand then taking it upmarket was a mistake.