Everything you need to know about Polestar

The answer isn’t quite as straightforward as you may think. While Polestar began as a Volvo subsidiary the brand is actually part of the Geely automotive empire, alongside the likes of Volvo, Lotus and Zeekr. If it feels like Polestar started in a flash, that’s because it did - both metaphorically and literally.

Polestar is a performance electric brand that first came to prominence as Volvo’s performance and racing division, but is now solely focused on building the most sustainable automobiles possible.

But who owns Polestar? Who makes Polestar cars? Where are Polestar cars manufactured? We’ll answer all those questions and more in this deep dive into the brand’s past, present and future.

Originally the company was a joint-venture between Volvo and Geely, but the Swedish brand decided to divest the majority of its stake in the operation, making Geely the primary Polestar parent company. Geely founder Li Shufu owns a significant stake in the brand via his personal company, PSD Investment.

So, how did Polestar begin in a flash? Well, the brand’s origins trace all the way back to 1996 and a Swedish touring car racing team called Flash Engineering. The name came from team owner Jan ‘Flash’ Nilsson, who had a history racing Volvos.

In 2005 he sold his team to businessman Christian Dahl, who renamed the team to Polestar Racing and began forging deeper ties with Volvo. In 2010, Geely took over Volvo from the Ford Motor Company as part of its first steps towards international expansion.

Then in 2013 the first Polestar Performance road car project was launched with the S60 Polestar. This was an Australian initiative originally, designed to coincide with a Volvo/Polestar entry into the V8 Supercars championship.

The road car project went global in 2014 and by 2015 Volvo had decided to buy Polestar Performance and establish it as its own in-house brand.

In 2017 Geely and Volvo made the dramatic shift away from performance and instead reinvented Polestar as an electric vehicle brand, launching the Polestar 1 coupe in October that year (a model that was never offered in Australia).

By 2019 the Polestar 2 small sedan/hatchback had arrived as a rival to the Tesla Model 3 and then in 2024 the brand added the Polestar 3 mid-size SUV and Polestar 4 SUV ‘coupe’ to the line-up.

While the brand likes to highlight its Swedish heritage it has taken a more global approach to production. Polestar’s headquarters is in Gothenburg, Sweden, which is where it designs all of its cars. 

Production takes advantage of Geely’s Chinese manufacturing base, as well as the brand’s other industry connections to keep costs and emissions during production down.

Because of that the Polestar 2 is built in China, the Polestar 3 is made in China and the USA and the Polestar 4 is produced at factories in China and South Korea.

Polestar currently offers three models for sale - the Polestar 2, Polestar 3 and Polestar 4.

The Polestar 2 is a mid-size sedan/hatchback that rivals the likes of the BMW i4, BYD Seal and Tesla Model 3.

The Polestar 3 is a mid-size SUV based on the same underpinnings as Volvo’s EX90 and has been designed to sit above the sportier Polestar 4 coupe-style SUV.

While similar in size, the 4 is built on different underpinnings, the so-called 'Sustainable Experience Architecture' that is the basis for Volvo EM90 and Zeekr 001, amongst others.

The brand has already confirmed three more models , scheduled to arrive by the end of the decade. The first will be the Polestar 5 (you may have a feel for the brand’s naming protocol by now) which will be based on the Premacy concept, due by the end of 2025.

It is reportedly a mid-size sedan to challenge the likes of the Porsche Taycan and Audi e-tron GT.

The Polestar 6 will be a sports car, based on the O2 concept, was meant to arrive in 2026 but development of this hero model has been delayed to prioritise the Polestar 7, which is expected to be a compact SUV to sit underneath the Polestar 3.