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Comment by Max-20 | Hacker News Reader

I invested this week in $GGPI/Polestar, they are a swedish EV company that already delivered 20k cars. Valuation is $20b or 1/4th of Rivian: https://www.datocms-assets.com/11286/1632735805-210927-poles...

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Polestar are a brand of Geely, a Chinese EV company. Their latest car is based on the CMA platform, which is shared by a number of their brands:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Modular_Architecture_p...

I don't think they are anything much more than marketing nowadays, same as Abarth and Cupra.

Polestar is Chinese owned brand(Geely), and their polestar cars are basically the Volvo xc40 ev version. (that's why their sedan is so tall/high ground clearance).

They have yet to build a fully independent ev first platform.

Volvo is owned by Geely so it's kinda all flopped around in the frame of reference. By all intents, the XC40 platform was designed for Polestar and with Polestar because Polestar IS Volvo. It's just more fuzzy. All in, investing in polestar is investing in Volvo one way or annother.

Interesting, do you have any idea how that works. I thought Polestar was a brand/subsidiary of Volvo?

No, owned by Geely, which owns Volvo as well. It is an attempt from Geely to gain foothold in the western markets without being associated as a chinese brand, but as a swedish one.

I think it's more complicated than that - it was certainly owned entirely by Volvo as recently as 2015 and seems to share basically all engineering resources with Volvo. Seems like a funny attempt somewhere to make it seem like something other than Volvo - not sure why as Volvo has a reputation that's fairly decent already, if a bit dull and parental. I guess that's why Polestar is separate - to be more fashionable. Polestar still 'engineer' Volvos - I think it was at some point like BMW's 'M' thing - like a badge?

I think it might have to do with the Polestar 1 being a higher-end sports car.

Polestar was a firm that did trim and racing cars for Volvo. Volvo did aquire Polestar and a few years later they spun it out to be a ev-company owned 50/50 by Geely and Volvo (and volvo is owned by geely). The cars are designed in Sweden but built in China.

The founders of Polestar now runs the Cyan racing company which is the official racing partner of volvo and geely...

Similar idea to how Lexus is an independent company from Toyota.

But its is something other, like Audi is different than VW and Porsche, although their share a lot of ressources.

A big difference is that Audi was an established car maker that had made a lot of cars long before VW bought them. Polestar wasn't a car maker before being bought by Geely and has never made car independently of Volvo/Geely.

I interpreted it as not wanting to cannibalize ICE Volvo/existing model sales with EVs. Ford's Mach-E is on the other end of the spectrum.

Volvo have committed to being a 100% electric manufacturer this decade:

https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-gb/media/pressrele...

polestar has been around for ages kind of like bmw m. geely kind of killed the performance division of Volvo and spun it off into separate company kind of how Harley did with its live wire. love Volvos but we have to see how successful polestars will be

I know it will be unpopular here...but if Polestar decided to go against the trend and make a Gas only turbocharged Polestar-1 at a 30k price point it would give the Dodge Charger a run for its money.

Simply put it they'd sell a ton of them. The Dodge/Mustang brand will always have traction among a certain demographic but their design language looks tired.

New generations are looking for something which has the design of the Polestar_1.

Also the elephant in the room: Everybody wants and touts EVs, up until it's their turn to make a purchase, then the tradeoffs in terms of price, look and build quality make themselves feel strongly.

> New generations are looking for something which has the design of the Polestar_1.

What's the unique design of a Polestar 1? It's the same old basic low-rise sedan/saloon design that everyone's bored of isn't it?

Car shaped cars are a welcome respite from everything being a lifted, oblong spheroid now.

Basicly the rest of the world is going EV.. would be wierd to go the other way, and would end in pain..

I don't think its about looks at all. If anything its mostly been about range followed by price. Now that some of the newer cars like the Lucid Air go 520 miles on a single charge, its going to start to be a much easier sell especially with gas prices spiking to records in many places.

> I don't think its about looks at all

Name a good looking EV.

The EVs hypercars such as the Rivian or the Tesla Roadster Rocket do not count

The Lucid even...that's not a hypercar but it fits the supercar definitions in all markets which aren't NYC or LA

This baby instead... https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1125529_review-2020-chev...

At 59,995$ MSRP. Gas for sure, but who cares?

> Name a good looking EV

Okay. Porsche Taycan, Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo, Audi e-tron, Audi e-tron GT, Audi Q4 e-tron, Skoda Enyaq, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, Genesis GV60, Ford Mustang Mach-E, Jaguar I-Pace, Mercedes EQS, Mercedes EQE, Honda E, Mini E, Fiat 500e.

You can actually buy EV Skoda Octavia and Superb and Kodiaq too...

This. I have an EA charger 5 minutes from home and it's always so fun to look to see what is charging today, I see the wildest stuff that is just a 'Look!' having seen all the US cars on this list (plus the Nero and Bolt) I would say most EVs look better than most gas cars these days because they allow companies to open their design up a little for some wow.

I would also add the Lyriq (which is gorgeous), the Polestar 2, the R1T, and then just say the Honda E again from your list twice, because WOW, what a timeless design. It is just a Concept car...actually executed.

> Name a good looking EV.

Almost all of them look exactly the same as petrol or diesel cars. Sometimes the grill looks different as they don't need air-cooling. Is that a big deal?

They don't. There's an element of artificial/forced "futurism" in their appearance, generally: rounded bits in the wrong places, weird curves/shapes to trunks and lights, etc. Not to mention the poor and shoddy interiors. Tesla looks like it was going for a hospital surgery room level of sterility in the cabin--no thanks.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder obviously but I love how my Model 3 looks.

that would be the stupidest possible thing they could do since every nation is phasing out ICE.

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