Written by Cláudio Afonso | info@claudio-afonso.com | LinkedIn | Twitter
Swedish EV manufacturer Polestar announced on Tuesday several strategic initiatives to increase the Canadian market, one of its best markets with retail deliveries up 244% year-to-date.
Thankful to the Canadian government’s CAD $5,000 i-ZEV electric vehicle rebate, the Polestar 2 model costs CAD $48,950 in the country, less than USD $40,000. The company added that the second Polestar Space in Vancouver, located in the Kitsilano neighbourhood, is expected to open at the end of 2022.
“Canada is one of the brand’s most successful sales regions, contributing significantly to Polestar‘s global success of 21,200 deliveries and 50,000 cars ordered in the first half of 2022,” Polestar said.
Hugues Bissonnette, Head of Polestar Canada, appointed several critical new hires including a full roster of experts across marketing, operations, retail, technical operations, aftersales, and financial services.
Joining the existing Marketing Manager, Technical Operations Specialist, Retail & Sales Manager and Financial Sales Manager, the new roles of Network Development Manager, Order Management Specialist, Marketing & Events Specialist and an additional Retail & Sales Manager have been added, the company said.
“We have seen great enthusiasm all across Canada from our customers,” says Hugues Bissonnette. “As we add to the Polestar Canada team, we are excited to offer ‘local-for-local’ support to current customers while being able to appropriately scale up for expected rapid growth in the market.”
Polestar 2 qualifies for the Canadian government’s CAD $5,000 i-ZEV electric vehicle rebate, which when applied brings the price to CAD $48,950. Additionally, Polestar 2 qualifies for provincial rebates in numerous provinces and territories, including CAD $7,000 in Quebec and CAD $3,000 in British Columbia.
Earlier this week, Citi analyst Itay Michaeli initiated coverage on Polestar shares with a Buy rating and a price target of $13, an upside potential of 38.6% based on Friday’s closing price.
Michaeli expects the company led by Thomas Ingenlath to reach a ~6% market share of the global revenue pool available by 2030, with autonomous vehicles being a potential source of upside.
Last week, also Deutsche Bank analyst Emmanuel Rosner initiated coverage on the shares with a Hold rating and a $10 price target representing an upside potential of 12.48% on the shares.
The analyst said the “intimate partnership” between the Swedish EV maker with Geely and Volvo creates “an asset-light business model, speeding time to market, reducing manufacturing and supply risk”.
According to the 13F-HR forms filed Thursday, BNP Paribas Asset Management Holding sold 87.58% of its stake in NIO (274,700 shares) and added nearly 3.4 million Polestar shares in late June, when the Swedish manufacturer closed the merger process with Gores Guggenheim.
On July 21, Polestar signed a collaboration agreement with Arval in Spain for its leasing services. Arval is part of the BNP Paribas Group and will become Polestar’s global leasing service provider in Spain after arriving in the country in 1996. As of June 2022, the company has currently more than 200,000 vehicles on the road and is the leading national operator.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | info@claudio-afonso.com | LinkedIn | Twitter