National Post (National Edition)
Volvo to sell by Netflix-style subscription
Sleek sports car hybrid can be bought online
N E W Y O R K • Volvo’s Polestar high-end offshoot says it will market its new electric cars much like Netflix, with customers choosing from an all-inclusive subscription model that combines automotive costs such as insurance and maintenance into a single monthly payment. No money will be required upfront.
The Polestar 1 and Polestar 2 are the performance luxury brand of Volvo Cars, owned by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co.
Retail spaces planned for North America will be no-commission “guide shops” where buyers can evaluate the cars in real life without feeling pressure to buy from salespeople. Consumers will also be able to research, configure, and purchase the Polestar vehicles online at any time.
The model is similar in some regards to that of Tesla, which installed boutique shops in trendy neighbourhoods as it rolled out its cars, rather than using traditional car showrooms and dealerships.
“Within the time of gettingtoknowthebrandthere comesatimewhenyouwant to go and touch and feel it,” Thomas Ingenlath, the global CEO of Polestar, said in New York. “That’s where the spaces come into the picture.Youcangetaphysical representation of the car.”
It’s also similar in function to how Apple runs its shops. The fact that company staff won’t work off a sales commission means it won’t make a difference to them whether the customer buys the car online or in a store, he pointed out.
“That gives them the freedominmindtobeapartner in trying to give consumers the best experience,” said Ingenlath, who worked for years in the design sector for Volkswagen Group.
“It’s not all about selling Apple products there. Nobody is pushing them, ‘Get that thing now!’ Nobody likes that. At the end of the day you may go home and buy online, but that doesn’t matter to Apple, either.”
Polestar North America will open its first retail space in New York City in late 2019 or early 2020, with additional “Spaces” in Canada soon to follow.
This despite the fact that California will likely be one of, if not the biggest, market for the Polestar 1 and 2 in the nextfewyears.
“Atthemomentthetalks for the retail space has most progressed here in New York — finding the right location, getting a contract together that both sides agree on,” Ingenlath said.
Representatives from Volvo’s electric performance brand also said they have been meeting with 60 retailers worldwide to represent Polestar, with shops in each of the first markets to open in time for deliveries of its hybrid and electric coupes.
Polestar’s first car, the US$155,000 Polestar 1 hybrid, debuted in China in 2017 and has slowly been making the rounds, first in Europe at this year’s Geneva Motor Show, and later in North America at Pebble Beach.
It has three electric motors and one combustion engine that get the equivalent of 600 horsepower and what the company claims will be “the longest pure electric range of any hybrid in the world.”
Production will start in mid-2019 at the new Polestar Production Centre in Chengdu, China. Polestar will reportedly make 500 of the vehicles worldwide; all 200 of the first-year models designed for North America have been sold.
The limited availability and higher price of the car are by design. “Polestar 1 will not be the core of our business, though it certainly sets the tone for the peak of the technology we will offer,” Ingenlath said. “It is a brand building and an inspirational project. It’s a shining star.”
Polestar 2, the company’s first full-battery electric vehicle, will debut in the first quarter of 2019. It is a lowercost sedan Polestar started developing three years ago in order to compete against the Tesla Model 3. The fact that Audi, BMW, Jaguar, Porsche and Mercedes-Benz have all introduced pureelectric vehicles in the past six months only confirms what the brand started to develop years ago, Ingenlath said.
“If you ask me about monitoring what the competition is doing, it’s actually exactly what we need,” he said.
THERE COMES A TIME WHEN YOU WANT TO GO AND TOUCH AND FEEL IT.