Polestar CEO Michael Lohscheller has described the US government’s decision to bar the brand from selling new vehicles in the country as “pretty straightforward.”
In a new interview with the Financial Times on Thursday, Lohscheller commented for the first time on the regulatory process that will force the Sweden-based EV maker out of the American market from the 2027 model year.
The chief executive declined to disclose details of Polestar‘s discussions with the Commerce Department while guaranteeing that the company will not appeal against the ruling.
“The US decision is something we have to accept,” he said.
Until now, Lohscheller had confined his response to a corporate statement, pledging the brand’s focus on Europe, with no direct commentary on the regulatory process itself.
He has not commented on the approval granted by also Geely-backed brand Volvo Cars in late May.
The US declined in late June to grant the brand an authorization to Polestar under the Connected Vehicle Rule — which prohibits manufacturers owned or controlled by Chinese entities from selling connected vehicles in the country, starting with the 2027 model year.
Lohscheller framed the situation as an industry-wide inflection rather than a company-specific setback.
“I think it just accelerates the regionalization everywhere, not only for us but for the entire industry,” he told the Financial Times. “The days are over when everything was global.”
Volvo Approved, Polestar Denied
Volvo received authorization to continue importing and selling connected vehicles in the US just weeks before Polestar‘s application was rejected.
The Commerce Department has not publicly detailed the criteria that produced the divergent outcomes.
Both brands share the same ultimate parent in Geely Holding Group, and build vehicles at the same Volvo-operated plant in Ridgeville, South Carolina.
A US-assembled Polestar 3 rolling off that line alongside an authorized Volvo EX90 will be blocked from sale once the 2027 model year begins.
Volvo operates as a separately listed, established automaker with a larger and longer US footprint, which was previously highlighted by CEO Hakan Samuelsson.
Upon the approval of the authorization for Volvo, the Chief Executive told FT that he hadn’t been “especially nervous about this because I think we have very strong facts to show that we have been in the US for 70 years and even if we have a new ownership, we are a European carmaker from a technology point of view.”
Q2 Sales Underscore the Shift
Lohscheller’s remarks come the same day Polestar disclosed its first quarterly sales decline since 2024.
Second-quarter global retail sales fell 4.0% year-on-year, and the company introduced a new reporting metric — retail sales excluding its US business — that it attributed directly to the Connected Vehicle Rule decision.
The new metric did little to soften the result.
Excluding the US, second-quarter sales fell 3.9% to 16,175 cars, nearly matching the headline decline.
Implied US sales fell 7.2% in the quarter, to about 1,121 cars from 1,208, a decline far shallower than the collapse in the rest of the business.
According to monthly data estimates published by Motor Intelligence, the brand has posted year-over-year US sales declines every month since July 2025.
$25,000 Discounts
With its remaining months in the American market now formally finite, Polestar is running some of the steepest discounts in the EV sector.
The Polestar 4 coupe rear-motor variant is listed at $31,400, down $25,000 from a base price of $56,400 — a 44% reduction.
The dual-motor version is priced at $37,900, cut by the same amount from $62,900.
Built at Volvo‘s South Carolina plant, the Polestar 3 carries discounts of $23,000 across all three configurations, with the long-range single-motor starting at $44,500 and the dual-motor Performance version at $56,400.
Polestar‘s US configurator now lists only two models.
The Polestar 2, the brand’s original volume model, was pulled from the US configurator in April 2025 as tariffs on Chinese-built EVs made the sedan uneconomical to import.
A redesigned Polestar 2 is planned for 2027, but will not be offered in the United States.
Redirecting to South Korea, Europe
Rather than contest the US decision, Polestar is realigning its manufacturing and commercial strategy around the markets where it can still grow.
The company announced on Tuesday that a new SUV variant of the Polestar 4, its best-selling model, will launch September 2.
The SUV will be built exclusively at the Renault Korea plant in Busan, South Korea, while the existing coupe version will continue to be produced both in South Korea and at Geely‘s Hangzhou Bay facility in China, a Polestar spokesperson clarified to EV.
South Korean production carries trade advantages.
The EU-South Korea free trade agreement eliminates tariffs on passenger vehicles, meaning Busan-built Polestar 4s would enter the European market duty-free.
Chinese-made Polestar vehicles currently face a combined 28.8% levy in Europe — an 18.8% countervailing duty imposed by the European Commission in October 2024 on top of the EU’s standard 10% tariff.
As a 2027 model, the Polestar 4 SUV will not be available to American buyers.
Further out, Polestar plans to manufacture its Polestar 7 compact SUV at a Volvo plant in Slovakia, sidestepping both Chinese import duties into Europe and any connected-vehicle regulatory risk tied to Chinese assembly.
Deliveries of the Polestar 5, a four-door grand tourer, are set to begin this summer.
