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Shares of Polestar, a Swedish electric carmaker, fell to $0.7829 on May 31st, trading below $1 for eight consecutive trading days and could lose its Nasdaq listing if it fails to return above $1 within a specified period of time.

Polaris's market capitalization once surpassed that of traditional car companies such as Nissan and Renault, but now its price per share has fallen to less than $1, down more than 80 per cent over the past year. In order to maintain stable development, in November 2023, Polar announced that it would receive a total of $450 million in additional term loans from shareholders Volvo Automobile and Geely Holdings.

Data show that Polester Polar was listed on NASDAQ in June 2022 under the ticker symbol "PSNY". Through a merger with SPAC Gores Guggenheim, Polar took over Gores Guggenheim's share price, closing the day up 15.76% to close at US $13.00 per share, with a total market capitalization of US $27.5 billion. By the end of the day, the stock price had fallen to US $0.7829. It has fallen by more than 90% since it went public.

Although backed by Geely and Volvo, but throughout the development history of Polar Star cars, it is difficult to give an optimistic evaluation.

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 data of the Federation of passengers, only 24 Polestar-1 vehicles were sold in China in 2020. It is generally believed in the industry that Star 1 is not for sales, but to create a high-end brand image.

In February 2019, Polar launched its first pure electric car, Polestar 2, which is based on the Volvo CMA architecture. The current single-motor standard endurance version costs 258000 yuan, the single-motor long-endurance version costs 282800 yuan, and the dual-motor long-range version costs 338000 yuan, directly matching the standard Tesla Model 3, which is considered to be the volume model of Polar Star. However, the Polestar 2 has not become a competitor to Tesla Model 3, but has become a popular model in the Chinese market. Data show that Polar sold 29000 vehicles worldwide in 2021, while relevant data show that only 2048 vehicles were sold in the domestic market that year, accounting for 7% of the total global sales. In 2022 and 2023, the star also did not report specific market sales, of which 54600 cars were delivered worldwide in 2023, only 91 per cent of the reduced target. Terminal sales show that Polar Star sold only 983 vehicles in China in 2023 and 1717 in 2022.

In addition, the star is also in the red. In 2021 and 2022, Polar lost 1.007 billion yuan and 466 million yuan respectively, and lost another $468 million in the first three quarters of 2023. In order to control costs, Star had to start layoffs. In May 2023, it announced a global recruitment freeze and layoffs of 10%. In January 2024, it again announced that it would cut about 450 employees, accounting for about 15% of the total.

In the era of intelligent electric vehicles, China has become a unique and single market. When intelligence has become the core of automotive brand differentiation competition, Ji Xing also tries to change the domestic market through intelligent technology. At present, Geely has begun to strengthen its control over the sales of Polar in China. Interstellar Meizu has set up a joint venture with Jixing in China, with the former accounting for 51% of the shares and dominating the business of Polaris in China. Officially, the new joint venture will build on Meizu's existing Flyme Auto to build a car operating system for Star Motor and develop new in-car applications, streaming services and smart vehicle software.

The knockout stage of the automobile industry has begun, and the living environment of minority brands has become more difficult because of fierce competition. If Polaris can not make a thorough reform in product research and development, production rhythm and sales channels to adapt to the Chinese market as soon as possible, then it is likely to be eliminated by the Chinese market and marginalized in the brand competition within Geely Group.

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