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On June 24th, Polestar, a Swedish brand of new energy vehicles, was listed on Nasdaq in the United States under the stock code "PSNY". It is worth mentioning that Polar acquired the listing through a merger with the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Gores Guggenheim, which took over Gores Guggenheim's share price, which closed at $11.23 a share the day before. As of the close of the day, the Polar Star was up 15.76% to close at $13.00 per share, with a total market capitalization of $27.5 billion.

What is SPAC? SPAC's full name is Special Purpose Acquisition Company, which literally translates to "special purpose acquisition company". SPAC is a way of backdoor listing. Different from shell listing, SPAC, as a listing platform (shell company), has only cash but no actual business and assets. This company will invest in mergers and acquisitions of pre-listed target enterprises, and the target enterprises will quickly achieve the purpose of listing financing through mergers and acquisitions with listed SPAC. It is understood that the last car company to go public through the SPAC merger is Faraday Future (FF), which listed on NASDAQ on July 22, 2021 at an offering price of $13.78 and a current share price of $2.48.

To some extent, Polar Star also belongs to the new force of car building. According to the data, Polestar started out as a racing player, but after many victories, it was finally chosen by Volvo and became the car modification and maintenance company of the Volvo racing team. Because of its stable achievements and technical strength, it was subsequently selected as a performance partner by Volvo and was officially authorized by Volvo's after-sale retrofit engine program. In 2010, Volvo suddenly changed dramatically, when Geely acquired all shares of Ford's Volvo cars with a qualification of 800 million US dollars, and Geely became one of the top 500 companies in the world. Geely, a car brand on the verge of delisting, drove into the fast lane after buying Volvo, and by 2015, Volvo sold 503100 vehicles for the whole year, the highest in the 88-year history of the brand. Thanks to sales growth, Volvo had revenue of 164.25 billion Swedish kronor, 70 times that of 2.34 billion Swedish kronor when it was acquired in 2010.

It was in 2015 that Volvo wholly acquired Polar Star and became Volvo's electrified high-performance R & D department. In October 2017, Volvo and Geely jointly announced that Polar Star would become an independent electric high-performance vehicle brand and join Geely's new energy product series with a new new energy vehicle brand.

As an independent electric high-performance car brand, Ji Xing has been on Standard Tesla from the very beginning and imitated Tesla's development route. At that time, Polestar 1, the first model launched by Ji Xing, was a two-door sports car with a positioning price of 1.45 million yuan, but the performance of Polestar 1 was really ugly. According to the Federation of passengers, only 24 Polestar-1 vehicles were sold in 2020. It is generally believed in the industry that Star 1 is not for sales, but to create a high-end brand image.

On February 27th, Polar Star launched its first pure electric car, Polar 2, which is based on Volvo CMA architecture. The current standard endurance version of single motor costs 258000 yuan, the long endurance version of single motor costs 282800 yuan, and the long endurance version of dual motor costs 338000 yuan, directly matching the standard Tesla Model 3, which is considered to be the volume model of Polar Star. However, the Star 2 has not become a competitor to Tesla Model 3, but has become a popular model in the Chinese market. According to the data, the total global sales of Star cars in 2021 were 29000, but the authorities did not disclose the specific market performance, while Tesla sold 295000 vehicles in the Chinese market this year. As a new power brand, Ulai, Xiaopeng and ideal are also approaching the class of 100000. In the face of the slowdown in sales, Jixing began to lower its sales target. Previously, Polaris originally set a sales target of 65000 vehicles in 2022, but due to the epidemic and the supply of spare parts, it reduced its annual sales target to 50000.

There is no denying that the Chinese market is now very important to the development of many new energy car companies. Take Tesla as an example. Tesla Shanghai Super Factory has become one of the factories that contribute the most production capacity among its factories in the world. Coupled with the enthusiasm of domestic consumers for Tesla's products, the Chinese market has become Tesla's largest single market in the world. In addition, including BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Volkswagen continue to accelerate the layout of China's new energy vehicle market.

According to Polar's plan, it plans to launch a new model every year by 2025, including the Polestar 3, Polestar 4 and Polestar 5. According to Nathan Forshaw, president of Polar Star China and Asia Pacific, these three products in the future will well adapt to the needs of the Chinese market, such as the Polestar 3 and 4 are all SUV models, taking into account the preferences of Chinese consumers. However, the industry believes that even if Polaris speeds up the layout of its products, it may not be able to change its decline in the global market.

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