Swedish EV company Polestar is finally set to debut on the public market today, but is it worth investing in considering the current market?
Following an explosion of IPOs and SPACs across 2020 and 2021, the landscape for debuting companies has now come to a crashing halt. Investors are already rotating away from growth stock towards proven, long-term winners, so why would they look to invest in a stock with no public track record?
On the other hand, when a company does rise up and go public in this environment, it’s definitely something to take notice of.
Enter Polestar…
A challenger emerges
Polestar is a Swedish electric car manufacturer that specializes in performance cars. Earlier this year, it catapulted itself into the general social consciousness following a sublime Super Bowl halftime ad that took some outright shots at market leaders Tesla and Volkswagen.
Its current offerings are relatively limited, with its first vehicle — the Polestar 1 — reportedly only manufactured 1,500 times worldwide. Its current car, the Polestar 2, is the first car of any kind to have an operating system exclusively powered by Google — not the worst ally to have when you’re taking on the might of Elon Musk and Co.
But, can Polestar possibly compete with the established players in the EV space? Well, it certainly has a chance. Polestar is majority-owned by fellow Swedish automaker Volvo who, in turn, is owned by Chinese conglomerate Geely. This gives Polestar a clear footprint in both China and Europe — two huge markets for the burgeoning EV space.
On top of this, Polestar is actively producing and, more importantly, selling cars — something not all EV makers can claim. I’m not saying Polestar is set to mount a challenge on Tesla just yet, but this could be one of the biggest disruptors to the public EV market we’ve seen in quite some time.
Polestar is set to begin trading on the Nasdaq today under the ticker symbol PSNY through a SPAC merger with Gores Guggenheim, Inc. — watch this space.