Polestar to use Volvo dealer network

Volvo reduced its stake in Polestar last year in terms of ownership, but there will soon be much closer cooperation when it comes to sales. As the new Polestar CEO Michael Lohscheller announced at a conference, the brand will start using the Volvo dealer network in just a few days. The shift in sales strategy away from pure online sales is to be completed as early as March.

“Our goal of growing by 30 to 35 per cent annually from 2024 to 2027 cannot be achieved with online sales alone,” said Lohscheller at the Automobilwoche event in Munich. Polestar has independent ‘Spaces’ and also exhibition areas at some Volvo dealerships, but – as with Tesla, for example – these are primarily used to provide information about the vehicles and for first impressions. However, the ordering process itself is handled online.

With this concept, Polestar sold just under 45,000 cars worldwide last year, specifically 44,851 units. By 2023, this figure had risen to almost 53,000 units. However, the decline is not only due to the lack of stationary dealerships to date, but also to the available models. Despite a facelift, the Polestar 2 is showing signs of age and the newer Polestar 3 and Polestar 4 models did not launch until 2024.

For Germany, the new strategy means that the Polestar presence will increase from nine to 17 locations in the short term – especially at Volvo dealers with several locations. Polestar had already switched from pure online sales to the “non-genuine agency model” in other markets, in which Volvo dealers not only operate the ‘Polestar Spaces’ and refer customers to Polestar as agents, they are also authorised to sell the vehicles.

Former Opel CEO Lohscheller has been the head of Polestar since October and announced a reorganisation of the sales network with a stronger role for traditional dealers in January. Anyone who wants to buy their Polestar online can continue to do so. However, the stronger local presence is also intended to appeal to more offline buyers. “I want us to position ourselves more broadly in sales and appeal to more customers,” he said in an interview with DPA and DPA-AFX at the time. The goal is to expand from 70 to 130 sales areas in Europe and from 36 to 57 in North America.

Initial experience with the new sales model in other markets has been consistently positive, as Lohscheller stated at the conference. The UK was already the largest single market for Polestar, where sales increased by 200 per cent in January with more stationary dealerships.

automobilwoche.de (in German)