Polestar 4 will also be built in South Korea

The manufacturer made a series of announcements at its first 'Polestar Day'. On top of expanding manufacturing of the Polestar 4 to South Korea, it will also collaborate with StoreDot on batteries for the Polestar 5 and set up a Virtual Power Plant to develop a business case for V2G technology.

Polestar is expanding its production capacity for the Polestar 4 with an additional production site in South Korea. As the electric car brand announced during its first “Polestar Day,” The Polestar 4 will also be manufactured in Busan, South Korea, by Renault Korea Motors.

According to Renault Korea Motors, the Polestar 4 will be the first fully electric vehicle produced there. Production there will kick off in the second half of 2025, and the EVs are destined for the North American and South Korean markets.

“We’re very happy to take the next step in diversifying our manufacturing footprint together with Geely Holding and Renault Korea Motors, a company that shares our focus on quality and sustainability,” says Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath. “With Polestar 3 on track to start production in Chengdu, China, in early 2024 and in South Carolina, USA, in the summer of 2024, we will soon have manufacturing operations in five factories across three countries, supporting our global growth ambitions.”

The electric SUV launched in April 2023. It is the manufacturer’s third model and will first launch in China early next year before being available in the US and Asia shortly after.

Moreover, Polestar announced that it is working with the Israeli battery developer StoreDot to bring the latter’s extreme fast charging (XFC) technology to production. The goal is “to demonstrate StoreDot’s XFC technology at full scale in a Polestar 5 prototype in 2024.”

StoreDot signed a multi-year contract with Polestar’s parent company Volvo Cars for battery cell development in September. The latter had already made a strategic investment in the battery maker in 2022.

StoreDot previously entered into a licence agreement with VinFast’s battery company VinES to develop several variants of the cells and use them in VinFast’s electric cars from 2025. A battery development cooperation between the two companies has existed since 2021.

And Polestar made another announcement at the event in Los Angeles: it will launch a Virtual Power Plant to develop vehicle-to-grid technology with the Polestar 3. The company is joining up with stakeholders in the electricity grid sector “to find potential business models for V2G and trial tangible use cases that can be scalable and applicable across regions.”

“Vehicle-to-grid has the potential to not only benefit individual customers, but whole communities. The average car is parked 90% of the time. With the bi-directional charging capabilities of Polestar 3 and the Polestar VPP, we can explore business models and community solutions that can unlock the true potential of V2G and enable owners to support the energy transition when they don’t need their car for driving,” says Ingenlath.

polestar.com, renaultgroup.com (South Korea), polestar.com (StoreDot), polestar.com (V2G)