Polestar 4 will be built in Korea, with potential US-China trade war implications
Polestar has announced that its upcoming Polestar 4 EV will be contract manufactured in a factory in Busan, Korea. Heretofore, Polestar’s vehicles have been assembled in China.
We’re at Polestar Day in Santa Monica today, where the company is showcasing its future plans to media, investors and owners. For more news from the day, check out our Polestar Day News Hub.
On yesterday’s earnings call, Polestar mentioned that progress was being made on new manufacturing plants for its upcoming cars. The Polestar 3, for example, will be built in factories in Chengdu, China and in South Carolina, USA, with both of these factories coming online in 2024.
But it also mentioned that a “new non-China plant” was in the works, though Polestar did not elaborate on that yet.
Well, less than 24 hours later we now know where that plant will be – the port city of Busan, South Korea, the second most populous city in the country and site of one of the world’s largest ports.
But this isn’t a new plant – it’s an already-existing plant owned by Renault Korea Motors (RKM). The plant is Renault’s largest in Asia, and will build the Polestar 4 for the North American and domestic South Korean markets. It’s the first battery EV to be built in the plant.
Polestar has so far focused on contract manufacturing, rather than building its own plants. It calls this an “asset-light” approach, which it says “enables it to benefit from the competence, flexibility and scalability of its partners and major shareholders, without needing to invest in its own facilities.” Polestar has no Polestar-only plants, all Polestars are built in plants on a contract basis.
Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath said that RKM shares Polestar’s vision for sustainability and touted Polestar’s global footprint and ambitions:
We’re very happy to take the next step in diversifying our manufacturing footprint together with Geely Holding and Renault Korea Motors, a company that shares our focus on quality and sustainability. With Polestar 3 on-track to start production in Chengdu, China in early 2024 and in South Carolina, USA, in the summer of 2024, we will soon have manufacturing operations in five factories, across three countries, supporting our global growth ambitions.”
Thomas Ingenlath, Polestar CEO
RKM’s CEO also commented on the new partnership:
Polestar 4 will be the first full battery electric vehicle produced in the Busan plant, symbolising Renault Korea Motors renewal and our ambitious vision for the future. We are very proud of this new partnership and grateful to the Polestar brand for their trust.
Stéphane Deblaise, CEO of Renault Korea Motors
Korea is an interesting choice, because it does have implications for the US. Right now the US and China are in a gradually expanding trade war, and it’s affecting electric vehicles. The EV tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act include limitations on battery component and critical mineral sourcing, primarily focusing on increasing US domestic assembly of EVs and EV battery components, but also wanting to source minerals from US free trade countries – which Korea is one of, and China is decidedly not.
This has caused rankling with some of the US’ trade allies, with Korea being one of the main objectors to the rule. While Korean minerals qualify under the rule, cars that are assembled in Korea are not. The Korean auto industry has been doing well in terms of US EV sales with E-GMP platform cars like the excellent Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6, and the tax credit changes represented a blow to that industry.
Korea did push for a different interpretation of the tax credit rules, which the IRS eventually accepted. This means EVs assembled overseas can bypass basically every tax credit requirement by leasing, since a lease is counted as a commercial sale, which is covered by a different portion of the Inflation Reduction Act that doesn’t include the protectionist manufacturing requirements. Polestar does currently pass-through the credit for those who lease a vehicle rather than purchase it, though the company routinely claims that the deal is for a limited time only (before routinely pushing back that deadline).
So even if Korean manufacturing could help the Polestar 4 meet the mineral requirements of the law, the car still won’t qualify for purchase tax credits because it’s assembled overseas. But if the trade war expands further from here, building outside of China might help keep things more stable for the company.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
GreenPower Motor Company says it’s received three orders for 11 of its BEAST electric Type D school buses for western state school districts in Arizona, California, and Oregon.
GreenPower hasn’t made the sort of headline-grabbing promises or big-money commitments that companies like Nikola and Lion Electric have, but while those companies are floundering GPM seems to be plugging away, taking orders where it can and actually delivering buses to schools. Late last year, the company scored 11 more orders for its flagship BEAST electric school bus.
As far as these latest orders go, the breakdown is:
- seven to Los Banos Unified School District in Los Banos, California
- two for the Hood River County School District in Hood River, Oregon
- two for the Casa Grande Elementary School District in Casa Grande, Arizona
Those two BEAST electric school buses for Arizona will join another 90-passenger BEAST that was delivered to Phoenix Elementary School District #1, which operates 15 schools in the center of Phoenix, late last year.
“As school districts continue to make the change from NOx emitting diesel school buses to a cleaner, healthier means of transporting students, school district transportation departments are pursuing the gold standard of the industry – the GreenPower all-electric, purpose-built (BEAST) school buses,” said Paul Start, GreenPower’s Vice President of Sales, School Bus Group. “(The) GreenPower school bus order pipeline and production schedule are both at record levels with sales projections for (2025) set to eclipse the 2024 calendar year.”
GreenPower moved into an 80,000-square-foot production facility in South Charleston, West Virigina in August 2022, and delivered its first buses to that state the following year.
Electrek’s Take
Since the first horseless carriage companies started operating 100 years ago (give or take), at least 1,900 different companies have been formed in the US, producing over 3,000 brands of American automobiles. By the mid 1980s, that had distilled down to “the big 3.”
All of which is to say: don’t let the recent round of bankruptcies fool you – startups in the car and truck industry is business as usual, but some of these companies will stick around. If you’re wondering which ones, look to the ones that are making units, not promises.
SOURCE | IMAGES: GreenPower Motors.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
While some recent high-profile bankruptcies have cast doubt on the EV startup space recently, medium-duty electric truck maker Harbinger got a shot of credibility this week with a massive $100 million Series B funding round co-led by Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund.
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for fledgling EV brands like Lion Electric and Canoo, but box van builder Harbinger is bucking the trend, fueling its latest funding round with an order book of 4,690 vehicles that’s valued at nearly $500 million. Some of the company’s more notable customers including Bimbo Bakeries (which owns brands like Sara Lee, Thomas’, and Entenmann’s) and THOR Industries (Airstream, Jayco, Thor), which is also one of the investors in the Series B.
Other prominent investors include Tiger Global, the Coca-Cola System Sustainability Fund, and ArcTern Ventures.
As for what makes Harbinger such an attractive investment prospect, Dipender Saluja, Managing Partner of Capricorn Investment Group’s Technology Impact Fund explains that, “Harbinger has demonstrated a remarkable ability to reach significant milestones far quicker than other EV companies … the market has been impressed by their ability to develop large portions of the vehicle in-house to drive down unit costs, while remaining capital efficient.”
The company plans to use the funds to ramp up to higher-volume production capacity and deliver on existing orders, as well as build-out of the company’s sales, customer support, and service operations.
“Harbinger is entering a rapid growth phase where we are focused on scaling production of our customer-ready platform,” said John Harris, co-founder and CEO. “These funds catalyze significant revenue generation. We’ve developed a vehicle for a segment that is ripe for electrification, and there is a strong product/market fit that will help fuel our upward trajectory through 2025 and beyond.”
The company has raised $200 million since its inception in 2021.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Harbinger.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
There is no state more associated with cars and car culture than Michigan – and the state that’s home to the Motor City has just taken a huge step into the future with the deployment of its first-ever all electric police vehicle.
The 2024 Ford Mustang Mach-E patrol vehicle is assigned to the Michigan State Police State Security Operations Section, and will be to be used by armed, uniformed members of the MSP specializing in general law enforcement and security services at state-owned facilities in the Lansing, MI area.
“This is an exciting opportunity for us to research, in real time, how a battery electric vehicle performs on patrol,” says Col. James F. Grady II, director of the MSP. “Our state properties security officers patrol a substantially smaller number of miles per day than our troopers and motor carrier officers, within city limits and at lower speeds, coupled with the availability of charging infrastructure in downtown Lansing, making this the ideal environment to test the capabilities of a police-package battery electric vehicle.”
The MSP’s Precision Driving Unit is nationally renowned for its annual Police Vehicle Evaluation, which our own Scooter Doll participated in last year, driving the then-new Chevy Blazer EV Police Pursuit Vehicles in a game of “cops and robbers.”
In those tests, the EVs have impressed – but the MSP has been hesitant to commit to a BEV until now. “We began testing battery electric vehicles in 2022, but up until now hybrids were the only alternative fuel vehicle in our fleet,” said Lt. Nicholas Darlington, commander of the Precision Driving Unit. “Adding this battery electric vehicle to our patrol fleet will allow us to study the vehicle’s performance long-term to determine if there is a potential for cost savings and broader applicability within our fleet.”
Michigan joins other states like Wisconsin and California in deploying electric patrol cars and saving big money on fuel and maintenance, with many more out there and many more to come.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Michigan State Police.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports10 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway