Polestar announces new management team to develop electrified performance brand for Volvo Cars
Polestar announces new management team to develop electrified performance brand for Volvo Cars
Volvo Cars, the premium car maker, has announced that Polestar, its performance car arm, is to become a new separately-branded electrified global high performance car company, marking the latest stage in Volvo’s ongoing transformation.
In order to drive the development of the brand, Volvo Cars also announced today that Thomas Ingenlath, Senior Vice President Design at Volvo, will assume the position of Chief Executive Officer at Polestar. Mr Ingenlath has been the inspiration behind Volvo’s award winning design renaissance in recent years.
“Thomas heading up the Polestar organisation shows our commitment to establishing a truly differentiated stand-alone brand within the Volvo Car Group,” said Håkan Samuelsson, president and chief executive of Volvo Cars.
Mr Ingenlath will be joined at Polestar by Jonathan Goodman, who will become Chief Operating Officer. Mr Goodman moves from his position as Senior Vice President Corporate Communication at Volvo Cars.
“With 25 years of commercial experience in the automotive industry, Jonathan is ideally placed to provide operational experience alongside Thomas’s vision, building on the experienced management team that will drive the Polestar brand forwards” said Mr Samuelsson.
“Polestar will be a credible competitor in the emerging global market for high performance electrified cars. With Polestar, we are able to offer electrified cars to the world’s most demanding, progressive drivers in all market segments.”
Volvo Cars acquired 100 per cent of Polestar Performance in July 2015, having worked together in motorsport since 1996. In the future, Polestar will offer Polestar branded cars that will no longer carry a Volvo logo, as well as optimisation packages for Volvo’s range of cars under the Polestar Engineered brand.
Polestar will enjoy specific technological and engineering synergies with Volvo Cars and benefit from significant economies of scale as a result of its connection to Volvo. These synergies will allow it to design, develop and build world beating electrified high performance cars.
Mr Ingenlath said: “I am really excited to take up the challenge of establishing this exciting brand, developing a fabulous portfolio of bespoke products and channelling the passion we have throughout the Polestar team. The next chapter in Polestar’s history is just beginning.”
Polestar will make further announcements about its products, industrialization and commercial plans in the autumn.
-------------------------------
About Polestar
Polestar is Volvo Car Group’s performance road car brand and was founded by Polestar Racing, today known as Cyan Racing. Polestar’s birth was a result of Cyan Racing’s race engineers desire to explore how technology behind the multiple title-winning success in racing could be applied to the performance of road going Volvo cars, on all roads and conditions in everyday life. The first road-going performance Concepts were launched in 2010 and the first performance cars, based on the Volvo S60, were ready in 2012. In 2015, Volvo Cars acquired Polestar Performance. Today, Polestar builds the S60 and V60 Polestar, 367 hp performance road cars with over 250 developments over-and-above the standard Volvo products. It also offers Polestar Engineered performance hardware upgrades and engine software optimisations for existing Volvo products.
About Volvo Car Group
For the 2016 financial year, Volvo Car Group recorded an operating profit of 11,014 MSEK (6,620 MSEK in 2015). Revenue over the period amounted to 180,672 MSEK (164,043 MSEK). For the full year 2016, global sales reached a record 534,332 cars, an increase of 6.2 per cent versus 2015. The record sales and operating profit cleared the way for Volvo Car Group to continue investing in its global transformation plan.
Volvo has been in operation since 1927. Today, Volvo Cars is one of the most well-known and respected car brands in the world with sales of 534,332 cars in 2016 in about 100 countries. Volvo Cars has been under the ownership of the Zhejiang Geely Holding (Geely Holding) of China since 2010. It formed part of the Swedish Volvo Group until 1999, when the company was bought by Ford Motor Company of the US. In 2010, Volvo Cars was acquired by Geely Holding.
As of December 2016, Volvo Cars had over 31,000 employees worldwide. Volvo Cars head office, product development, marketing and administration functions are mainly located in Gothenburg, Sweden. Volvo Cars head office for China is located in Shanghai. The company’s main car production plants are located in Gothenburg (Sweden), Ghent (Belgium), Chengdu and Daqing (China), while engines are manufactured in Skövde (Sweden) and Zhangjiakou (China) and body components in Olofström (Sweden).