On Wednesday, Swedish premium electric vehicle (EV) maker Polestar Automotive Holding (PSNY -3.73%) announced its car deliveries for the first half of 2022, reaffirmed its guidance for full-year deliveries, and provided some other statistics indicating strong demand for its Polestar 2 all-electric car, which has a starting price of about $50,000 before the $7,500 maximum U.S. federal tax credit for eligible EVs is applied.
Most EV aficionados are likely familiar with Polestar, as the company has been racking up accolades for the performance and design of its cars nearly as fast as EV pioneer Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, has been garnering headlines for backing out of his deal to take over Twitter.
But Polestar is probably a new name for many investors, as its stock just began trading on the Nasdaq late last month. The company was formerly the performance-car unit of Sweden's Volvo Cars, which is owned by China's Geely Automobile Holdings (GELYF -1.77%).
Volvo still owns a huge chunk of Polestar's stock. Moreover, Polestar uses Volvo's and Geely's production infrastructure and supply chains, which keep its business model asset-light and have enabled it to more quickly ramp up its production than other pure-play EV start-ups.
With this background in place, let's get into the latest Polestar news.
Image source: Polestar.
First-half 2022 car deliveries
Polestar delivered about 21,200 cars in the first six months of this year. That's about a 123% increase from its approximately 9,510 deliveries in the year-ago period.
All of the vehicles delivered in the first half of the year are Polestar 2s. The company made only limited quantities of its first vehicle, the Polestar 1, an extremely high-priced plug-in hybrid performance sports car, from 2019 to 2021.
Guidance for full-year 2022 car deliveries
The company reaffirmed its full-year target of delivering 50,000 cars. In 2021, Polestar delivered about 29,000 vehicles, which was up from approximately 10,000 in the prior year. So its 2022 guidance represents an annual increase of 72%.
"I am very confident that the strong momentum we have seen this year in brand awareness and sales figures will accelerate powerfully in the coming years as more ground-breaking cars are revealed," CEO Thomas Ingenlath said in the press release.
On that note, consumers shouldn't have to wait long to order the next Polestar model. The company plans a global launch of its electric performance SUV, Polestar 3, in October. This will be the first Polestar vehicle made in the U.S.
Other key statistics pointing to robust demand and interest
Polestar said that its global orders rose to 50,000 since the start of 2022, up more than 350% year over year. It attributed this jump to continued strong consumer demand along with booking the first portion of orders from rental car giant Hertz Global Holdings (HTZ -7.03%).
In April, Hertz and Polestar announced a global partnership that includes Hertz purchasing up to 65,000 Polestar EVs over five years. Hertz is making these vehicles available to rideshare drivers, as well as to retail leisure and business customers. At the time of the announcement, availability was expected to begin in spring 2022 in Europe and late 2022 in North America and Australia.
Polestar also said that its increased retail presence drove a more than 201% year-over-year increase in the number of test drives in the first half of this year.
Polestar stock deserves a spot on the watch lists of growth investors.
