Volvo: Polestar to become separately-branded EV company

Volvo Cars has announced that its performance arm - Polestar will soon become a standalone company within the Volvo Group and operate in the performance electric vehicle domain. This development comes at a time when the market for performance electric vehicles is seeing increased participation from manufacturers like Tesla. Conventional carmakers too are eyeing the EV space, with some of them planning to enter the performance EV industry in the near future.

Polestar Performance has been working with the Volvo Group from 1996. In July 2015, the Swedish automaker acquired the Polestar brand and has since been using it to develop high-performance variants of its existing models. Going forward, Polestar will be developing and retailing electric vehicles under its own brand. Such EVs won't have the Volvo name or logo. Meanwhile, the company will also be developing optimization packages for Volvo cars under the 'Polestar Engineered' brand.

Volvo Cars has further announced that Thomas Ingenlath, who is currently serving as the Senior Vice President Design at Volvo, will take over the position of Chief Executive Officer at Polestar. Meanwhile, Jonathan Goodman will move from his current position of Senior Vice President Corporate Communication at Volvo Cars to become the Chief Operating Officer at Polestar.

Details about the upcoming Polestar products and the company's commercial plans are expected to be made public in a few months. It is also being speculated that the company might make a big unveil or announcement at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September this year.