Polestar unveiled the Formula 2030 concept, the first show car designed under Head of Design Philipp Römers and a preview of the next Polestar 2 and the Polestar 7, as the EV maker leans again on the idea it was founded on nine years ago, that design can carry a car brand.
The Geely-backed brand said on Tuesday that the low four-door sports car is “the physical manifestation” of its Formula 2030 strategy, a plan it described in September as meant “to continue business growth and drive to profitability.”
Polestar has not published financial targets for the plan.
“Design should always reflect the values and mission of a brand and that is exactly what we did with Polestar Formula 2030 concept,” Römers said. He called it “a bold evolution of our already well-established design DNA to strengthen the brand’s positioning with performance at its heart.”
The concept arrives two years after the departure of the two designers who shaped Polestar, founding Chief Executive Officer Thomas Ingenlath and design chief Maximilian Missoni. It also comes as the company, shut out of the U.S. from the 2027 model year, has postponed its third-quarter results without setting a new date.
Founded by a Designer
Volvo Cars, which had worked with Polestar in motorsport since 1996 and bought it outright in July 2015, said in June 2017 that it would turn it into a separately branded electrified performance car company. It gave the top job to Ingenlath, then its Senior Vice President of Design, whom it called “the inspiration behind Volvo’s award winning design renaissance.”
Håkan Samuelsson, Volvo’s Chief Executive Officer at the time, said the appointment showed a commitment to “a truly differentiated stand-alone brand within the Volvo Car Group.”
Ingenlath set out the vision that October, when he unveiled the 600-horsepower Polestar 1 hybrid. “All future cars from Polestar will feature a fully electric drivetrain, delivering on our brand vision of being the new standalone electric performance brand,” he said.
Missoni, who had been Volvo’s Vice President of Exterior Design, joined in 2018 to lead Polestar’s design and oversaw the Polestar 2, 3 and 4.
Polestar listed on the Nasdaq on June 24, 2022 through a merger with the blank-check company Gores Guggenheim, raising about $890 million in gross proceeds.
The deal implied an enterprise value of about $20 billion when it was signed in 2021, and Polestar said at the closing that it planned to lift sales tenfold to 290,000 cars in 2025.
“We had the vision of an electric premium brand which puts performance and design at its core,” Ingenlath said when he left.
The Turnover of 2024
The ownership changed first. Volvo said in February 2024 that it would hand most of its Polestar shares to its own shareholders, cutting its holding from about 48% to 18% and leaving Geely as the main backer.
The design leadership followed. Polestar said on August 21, 2024 that Missoni was leaving after six years and named Römers, the Head of Exterior Design at Audi and before that a designer at Volkswagen, to succeed him. His work includes the Audi e-tron GT and the seventh-generation Volkswagen Golf, according to Autocar.
BMW said three weeks later that Missoni would oversee the design of its upper mid-size and luxury models and of BMW Alpina.
A week after the design change, Ingenlath resigned. He was replaced by Michael Lohscheller, a former Chief Executive Officer of Opel, VinFast and Nikola, who took over on October 1, 2024. Jean-François Mady joined from Stellantis as Chief Financial Officer three weeks later, and Jonas Engström, a former Volvo executive, was named Chief Operating Officer that December. Winfried Vahland, a former Chief Executive Officer of Škoda, became Chairman.
Ingenlath took an advisory design role at Geely in 2025 and returned to Volvo as Chief Design Officer on February 1, 2026.
Lohscheller’s Reset
Lohscheller, a finance executive by background, set a new course in January 2025. “We are building on the strong Polestar brand with design and performance at its core,” he said. “But significant changes are needed to make this well-respected progressive brand a successful and viable business.” Polestar added retail partners in a shift to what it calls an active selling model, and announced the Polestar 7, a compact SUV to be built at Volvo’s plant in Kosice, Slovakia, on a single architecture meant to cut complexity and cost.
Retail sales rose 34% in 2025 to a record 60,119 cars, about a fifth of the 290,000 targeted at the listing. In February 2026, Polestar announced four new cars in three years: the Polestar 5 grand tourer, an SUV version of the Polestar 4 that went on sale in September, a new Polestar 2 in 2027 and the Polestar 7 in 2028.
“Polestar 2 is the foundation of our brand, with over 190,000 cars sold,” Lohscheller said then. The current model has gone out of production in China.
The management team kept changing. Gerry Yang joined from Geely as Chief Technology Officer in October 2025, Scott Dicken became Chief Commercial Officer in January 2026, and Head of Software Sven Bauer left in July. In August, a Volvo sales executive replaced its manufacturing chief on Polestar’s board.
Europe After the U.S.
The U.S. Department of Commerce declined in June 2026 to authorize Polestar to sell vehicles from the 2027 model year under its Connected Vehicle Rule, which restricts vehicle technology linked to China. Polestar said it would keep selling its remaining U.S. stock, and Lohscheller ruled out an appeal.
“The automotive industry is entering a new phase, based on regional dynamics,” he said at the time, calling Europe, which accounts for close to 80% of retail sales, “our largest growth engine.”
The finances remain strained. Polestar reported a first-half net loss of $842 million on revenue of $1.36 billion, cut its 2026 volume growth forecast to low-to-mid single digits, and warned of significant doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.
Retail sales rose 0.6% to 44,790 cars in the first nine months and fell 0.5% outside the U.S. The shares closed at $4.72 on Monday.
Polestar disclosed on November 5 a plan to convert its Swedish unit Polestar Performance AB into a Dutch company, saying Dutch law would be “more efficient” for its holding structure. Operations and headquarters are to stay in Gothenburg.
What the Concept Shows
The Formula 2030 is 184.3 inches (4,680 mm) long and 53.1 inches (1,350 mm) tall, lower than the Polestar 5, with four seats and doors that open in opposite directions.
Its Dual Blade headlights preview “the face of the next generation Polestar 2,” the company said. At the rear, the full-width lightbar gives way to what Polestar calls Single Blade lights, introduced “ahead of series production.”
Inside, a 20-inch display is mounted on the steering column and eight customizable physical controls sit below the center screen. A LiDAR unit stays hidden until the car drives itself.
“As a performance brand, we see a renewed focus on the driver, and so we re-balance the digital and physical,” said Juan Pablo Bernal, Head of Interior Design. “We introduce physical buttons and controls.”
Polestar gave no powertrain details and did not say the car would be built. It confirmed only that “various design attributes” will appear on the next Polestar 2 and the Polestar 7.
When Polestar first announced the concept in September, Römers said the brand needed “a bold evolution not revolution of what came before.”
