Electric Car Boss Quits After Sales Plunge 40%
The Chief Executive and founder of European Tesla-rival Polestar has quit after seven years at the helm after sales plunged 40% in a year. The Telegraph has the details.
Polestar, which is controlled by Sweden’s Volvo and China’s Geely, confirmed on Wednesday the resignation of long-time boss and founder Thomas Ingenlath. He will be replaced from October 1st.
His resignation comes after sales of the Swedish company’s upmarket electric cars slumped. Global volumes fell 40% in the first quarter of 2024 to 7,221, down from 12,076 the previous year.
Once valued at more than $20bn (£15bn), Polestar’s valuation has plummeted to around $2bn since it went public in 2022. Its shares, listed in New York, are down 41% this year alone.
The carmaker, headquartered in Gothenburg in Sweden, lost close to $1.5bn over the course of 2023.
Originally starting life as a prototyping division of Volvo, developing concept models and touring car racers, Polestar was launched as a standalone marque in 2017. It was billed as Europe’s answer to Tesla.
Vehicles such as the Polestar 2 electric hatchback received a positive reception from critics.
However, Matthias Schmidt, an analyst at Schmidt Automotive Research, said Polestar had struggled to turn its critical acclaim into mass sales.
In February, Volvo announced it would no longer be providing financial support to Polestar, offloading part of its 48% stake to Geely, its Chinese parent company.
Worth reading in full.
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Oh dear, never mind.
At last some good news.
What an utterly pointless comment.
Keep Calm & Carry On. What happened to that British slogan in 2020!
Well done to Swedish entrepreneur Thomas Ingenlath for his bold action! I hope he finds a new career direction, and joins Clintel and the Global Climate Declaration, on the side of the angels.
“Europe’s answer to Tesla”
Who would want to mimic a company whose only method of making profit is by robbing taxpayers?
Tesla loses money every time it sells a car. Which it then takes back from the taxpayer and from proper car companies who dare to make useful, practical vehicles. An absurd, corrupted situation, facilitated by greenwashing governments and cheered on by the illiterate and gullible public – SAVE DA PLANET!
This is Volvo/Geely saying “Hello, Mr Politician. We can’t make this work, you kinda forced us into doing it, but we thought we wouldn’t be able to, so just in case it all failed and the subsidies dried up, we separated our electric car division from the core of our profit-making enterprise. Easier like that, you see. So yeah, BEVs are a lot of fun as a toy, but they don’t work in an economic sense. Bye for now.”
Companies can only be run according to the laws passed by politicians that the public have voted into the political bubble.
Why on earth would the public act in such a weird way?
After all, they are ‘splendidly well informed’ by the BBC. 🙂
Their fave word seems to be ‘sustainability’. Any intelligent person can see that this technology is the acme of unsustainability on many levels. As well as the dubious thrill of sitting atop a massively flammable battery. I am glad to see this rejection because electric cars epitomise the phoneyness and venality of this putrid agenda and its rejection suggests a growing consciousness of simple truths.
“Sustainabilty” all sounds lovely until you realise what it actually means. —–A world run by technocrats controlling the world’s wealth and resources and YOU
EV’s the snake oil of Net Zero, the mythical pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, you might just as well dream about a future transport system run by Unicorns. They are the fifth column, Trojan Horse whereby TPTB destroy the transport freedom of the hoi-polloi.
Ever since the Victorian railway revolutionised transport, the Toffs and the Elites have recoiled in horror at the idea that ordinary folk could have travel freedom. Net Zero gives them the excuse to abolish travel freedom and put us all back in our boxes.
Quite so. There’s a quote from Ruskin;
“There was a rocky valley between Buxton and Bakewell…You enterprised a railroad…you blasted its rocks away…And now, every fool in Buxton can be at Bakewell in half-an-hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton.”
He really didn’t like the idea that the lower classes should get to move about, either for business or pleasure.
Yes and forgetting that the proles did all the heavy lifting. The Paddy’s built England!
NO, “the Paddy’s” did NOT build England.
That’s like saying the Potato Famine existed only in Ireland, omitting the fact that it heavily affected England and Northern Europe, but they don’t complain as much.
That’s like the Ethnic Africans who claim “We Built America”. They built nothing.
Why were there no African slaves in Britain? Because the work of farm and field and factory was done by the Indigenous People of the British Isles: the English, Welsh, Scots and Irish, whose ancestors have lived in these islands for more than a thousand years.
I think the potato famine in Ireland was especially bad considering that was their main food source was potatoes. Hence people fleeing to the work houses so they can get a proper Catholic burial.
And give thanks to Freddie Laker for allowing the plebs to be able to afford to fly.
It was never designed to be a plausible model obviously. It was just a case of continuing to keep the plebs deluded whilst they got away with all the spoils a few yards further, a few more years delusion. The point is you won’t have an electric vehicle or any vehicle; you won’t have public tranport because the plan is for you not to have a life at all.
They will plunge to almost zero in the next twelve months I would wager. Both fromn the point of view of production and demand. But they robbed you blind anyway in the interval. There is nothing left to offer. Universal basic income and you and a robot jerking each other off I hope not.
Off topic, apologies 🙏
Phlegraean Fields
The above mentioned is a giant caldera in the bay of naples, italy, and its becoming very active! 2000 small earthquakes in the last month! Even the locals are getting skittish, tourists are smelling sulphur bubbles rising from the sea while swimming
come on DS look into this?
There are 24 active volcanos around the Phlegraean plateau, not just one!
This one will make mount Tambora look like a fire cracker.
For those who don’t know, the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 darkened the world for a year resulting in famine across Europe and America know as the year with no summer!.
All the signs are there, volcanoligist, bless em, are in agreement, italy is in denial !
The world is going to pop and its not yellowstone!
This is an ele event !
Fascinating! There is certainly a lot of volcanic activity going on world wide. I know it has the potential to cause an extinction level event, but perhaps it might focus a few minds about real threats to the human race, rather than imagined ones. I have no doubt though, even now, some hapless BBC reporter is penning a report about the connection between eruptions/ earthquakes and global warming. It will all be our fault you know!
Old bat, your a gem!
Total understanding.
Mankind has known a world so stable during its occupancy that it takes it so much for granted, a massive slap on the arse is what it needs!, we’ve experienced it before at great cost of life and no doubt we will experience it again.
Antonio guterres obviously knows better?
I’d like to be locked into a room with him, no weapons, any day of the week!
How many of us survive is for the birds, but I will not wear a sandwich board!
Interesting.
I was sufficiently interested to do a bit of Googling on Phlagraean Fields. After the suggestions for holidays, the first technical hit I got was this, last updated 28th August:
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/campi-flegrei.html#google_vignette
From which I quote “The volcanic field has been the site of some extremely violent eruptions in the past, although the few ones that occurred during historic times were small events. Today, there is no sign of imminent reawakening of activity”
Obviously I’m no expert on volcanology and can’t judge whether your information is more reliable than the above web site, so I’m just noting that alternative views exist. After all that’s what scepticism is about 🙂
So, would go on holiday there then?
If you were a vulcanologist, you would. 🙂
Depends on the ‘Birds’…I’m old fashioned like that. I like a bit of ornithology too!
Try DuckDuckgo. Plenty on there.
There were actually quite a lot of sites reporting impending doom in the area, below the holiday adverts and the abovementioned volcano web site. What struck me was that all the doomy sites were those of news outlets, for whom clicks are money and doom-mongering pays. C.f Covid…
Volcanic activity is likely to increase when the solar magnetic field reverses as solar cycle 25 declines and solar cycle 26 begins during the next 5 to 7 years. This is because the solar magnetism cancels some of the earth’s magnetic field and affects the flow of magma in the earth’s mantle.
Why not email the Daily Sceptic editors directly with your suggestions, as they say on the News Round-Up?
We are entering a time of major geoligical disturbances. We already have for the last few years. Hunga Tonga is likely to cause excess rainfall for a few more years. Crop yields in our neck of the woods will be down by eighty percent. It’s cool. Think youself lucky that you had a few stable decades because that isn’t the norm. Yes of course it is sad to witness a mass die off especially of people you love but you just have to acknowledge it as the price you pay for being a human being.
And the luxury for living your life on this earth!
Wild, rugged, nasty and savage. But if it wasn’t then it would be even uglier. Like Worcester Sauce. You wouldn’t want to drink a bottle of it but it can add a certain piquancy.
Sooner have a tasteless opposite!
Daft as it sounds Jabby, italy is showing all the signs of going up! And it’s not good for the planet
Meanwhile lots of Rivian battery vehicles are burning at the Rivian factory. Ford has dumped its battery SUV. Leasing of battery cars in Germany is in trouble due to falling resale values – well that’s a shock. All going so well for the world of the battery car.
Torchy Torchy the battery car! (Boy, sorry,fits so well)
Volvo, which is controlled by China’s Geely…