Volvo Unplugs Its Electric Vehicle Affiliate Polestar From Future Funding

An industry-wide backlash against electric vehicles continued Thursday when Volvo, an early pioneer in the EV field, said it won’t continue to provide funding to Polestar, an automotive manufacturer owned by Volvo that produces electric cars.
Volvo and its parent Zhejiang Geely Holding Group jointly formed the current holding company of Polestar in 2017 and, in 2022, Polestar shares began trading on the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market via a merger with Gores Guggenheim, a special-purpose acquisition company.
The move is the latest retrenchment that the EV segment of the automotive industry has seen over the past 12 months. The industry’s attempt to pivot to EVs has been hit by multiple setbacks just as a bevy of new battery-powered models is being launched.
Tesla, a pioneer in the EV field, warned of notably slower growth in 2024, the rental company Hertz said it would dump one-third of its unpopular EV rental fleet and replace the vehicles with traditional internal-combustion powered autos.  Ford is slashing production of its F-150 Lightning pickup, an EV that generated a tremendous amount of buzz at launch last year, and earlier this week, Renault said it would cancel the initial public offering of its EV unit Ampere.
Meanwhile, Volvo said it would concentrate its financial resources on its own vehicles going forward.
The storied Polestar name, which originated with Swedish motorsport team Flash Engineering, founded in 1996 by Jan “Flash” Nilsson. Nilsson’s team, fielding a factory-backed Volvo 850 GLT, won its first two seasons and reached the podium several times in the years to follow.  Nilsson sold the team to driver Christian Dahl, who renamed it Polestar Racing and the company operated a production car tuning division called Polestar Performance AB. Volvo made Polestar its official tuning partner in 2009.
Volvo, which already had close ties to the racing team, acquired the Polestar brand in 2015. The racing team, meanwhile, was rebranded to Cyan Racing.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)