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By Ishika Dangayach, 12:30
Volvo said Wednesday that it wants to build a new luxury SUV for its electric Polestar brand at a factory in Charleston, South Carolina.
Founded in 2017 by Volvo Cars and its Chinese parent firm, Geely Holding Group, Polestar will build its first vehicle in the United States.
Thomas Ingenlath told Reuters in a telephone interview that the Polestar 3 is “nicely suited for the U.S. as a ... big, tall, grown-up SUV. This is a win-win situation.”
Polestar said that the Volvo factory in Ridgeville, South Carolina, near Charleston, presently manufactures the Volvo S60 sedan and will add the Volvo XC90 SUV in 2022. The annual capacity of the factory, which opened in 2018, will be 150,000 cars with the addition of the Volvo and Polestar SUVs, according to a Volvo spokeswoman, Reuters stated.
The Polestar 3 will be based on the same electrified premium platform, known as the SPA2, like the XC90, Ingenlath said. It will compete with vehicles such as Tesla Inc's Model X SUV.
Volvo is investing $118 million in the Polestar 3's manufacturing at the South Carolina facility. The car is scheduled to enter production in 2022. It will be built on the same platform as the next-generation Volvo XC90, which will also be manufactured at the plant.
Polestar is distinct in that it is an existing automaker's electric-vehicle brand, rather than a new EV start-up or a regular automobile brand adding EVs to its range.
Moreover, the business is also working on a larger and more ecologically friendly sedan called Precept, which will be manufactured at a new facility in China.
Polestar said in April that it had received $550 million from a consortium of long-term external investors and that more funding was possible.
The automaker now works in 13 countries and intends to sell tens of thousands of automobiles worldwide.