Polestar's quarterly EV sales jump as offers attract more buyers
reported a surge in second-quarter sales on Thursday, as offers and discounts helped boost sales in its home market of Europe amid a challenging macroeconomic environment.
Demand for Polestar's electric vehicles has remained resilient despite high interest rates, cost of living, and the availability of more affordable hybrid or gas-powered options.
"We've delivered another strong quarter of growth, in increasingly challenging market and geopolitical conditions," said Polestar CEO, Michael Lohscheller.
The company has also made strategic changes after Lohscheller took over as CEO, including focusing more on its home market of Europe as American import tariffs threaten to hike production costs and disrupt global supply chains.
While Polestar has tried to conquer both the U.S. and Chinese markets, its cars have been much better received in Europe, which accounts for the lion's share of its sales.
Polestar last week said it would make its
Polestar 7 SUV
model at a Volvo Cars factory in Slovakia in order to minimize exposure to tariffs.
The tariffs have affected Polestar more than most European automakers because the majority of its cars are produced in China - facing high automotive duties - either by
Volvo Cars or Geely
.
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Time of India
37 minutes ago
- Time of India
US allies want to redraw trade map, sans US
Trucks crossing into the US via a border bridge in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico (Picture credit: NYT) Trade chaos is forcing America's allies closer together, and further from the US. And as that happens, the European Union is trying to position itself at the centre of a new global trade map. The bloc learned this weekend that Washington would subject it to 30% tariffs starting Aug 1. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EU executive branch, responded with a pledge to keep negotiating. She also made it clear that, while the EU would delay any retaliation until early Aug, it would continue to draw up plans to hit back with force. But that was not the entire strategy. Europe, like many of the US' trading partners, is also looking for more reliable friends. "We're living in turbulent times, and when economic uncertainty meets geopolitical volatility, partners like us must come closer together," von der Leyen said on Sunday in Brussels at a news conference alongside the Indonesian president, Prabowo Subianto. Just as President Trump threatens to put hefty tariffs on many countries, including Indonesia, the EU is working to relax trade barriers and deepen economic relations. "In hard times, some turn inward, toward isolation and fragmentation," von der Leyen said. Then, in a message implicitly extended to world leaders who have been jolted by Trump's tariffs, she added, "You are always welcome here, and you can count on Europe." It is a split screen that is becoming typical. On one side, the US sows uncertainty as it blows up weeks of painstaking negotiations and escalates tariff threats. On the other, the 27-nation EU and other American trading partners are forging closer ties, laying the groundwork for a global trading system that revolves less and less around an increasingly fickle US. It will be hard to move away from the US, and Prabowo predicted that America would always be a world leader. But many American trading partners now feel that they are left with little choice but to diversify. Trump has announced 30% tariffs on EU and Mexico. Canada's rate is 35%. The likes of Thailand (35%), Bangladesh (35%) and Brazil (50%), along with dozens of other US trading partners, appear to be headed for a similar fate. Trump has backed down from threatened tariffs before, and he has indicated a willingness to negotiate these tariffs down before their Aug 1 effective date - and the EU and other economies are poised to continue with negotiations. But the atmosphere is increasingly hostile. Hitting back would be just a first step; drawing closer to outside allies may prove even more meaningful in the long run. Since Trump's push to reorder the trading system kicked off in Feb, the EU has been hustling to strike new trade agreements and deepen existing ones. Canada and the EU have pulled together. Britain and the EU have had a rapprochement, five years after Britain officially exited the union. The bloc is working toward closer trading relationships with India and South Africa, and with countries across South America and Asia. Nor is the EU the only global power adopting such a strategy. Canada is also drawing closer to Southeast Asia, while Brazil and Mexico are working to deepen their ties. Officials have even floated the idea of building trading structures that exclude the US and China, which is widely blamed for supporting its factories to the point that they overproduce and flood global markets with cheap goods. Von der Leyen recently suggested that Europe could pursue a new collaboration between the bloc and a trading group of 11 countries that includes Japan, Vietnam and Australia, but that notably did not include the US or China. One key question, analysts said, is whether America's allies will go a step further. Instead of simply collaborating more with one another and leaving the US out, could they actually gang up to counter the US? Stay informed with the latest business news, updates on bank holidays and public holidays . AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
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Business Standard
41 minutes ago
- Business Standard
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The volume of potential candidates coming out of China means multinational companies, who have a constant need to add new products to the mix, can 'cast their net wider than ever before,' Norstella's Chancellor said. A key advantage that has fueled the rise of Chinese biotech firms is their ability to conduct research cheaper and faster at every step of the way, from lab experiments and animal testing to human trials. Creating a new drug from scratch is notoriously time-consuming and expensive, and China's massive patient pool and centralized hospital network have become a significant accelerator. An analysis of the time taken for drugs to conduct various testing stages shows that doctors in China can recruit for trials much faster — for early trials for cancer and obesity drugs, they can complete patient enrollment in half the time compared to the US. 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In addition to economic implications and possible military applications of biotech, China's leverage on innovative therapies may be weaponized in a future conflict, he said, if Americans become dependent on those medicines. The perception of threat has spurred calls for the US government to stymie China's biotech growth — through restrictions such as export controls on scientific equipment and barriers to investment — and boost the domestic biotech sector, including by changing the regulatory environment to emulate countries where clinical trials are run more quickly. Robert F. Kennedy, the US Secretary of Health and Human Services, recently pledged to 'Make American Biotech Accelerate.' Despite the risks of the newly combative relationship between the world's two biggest economies, Chinese drugmakers like Akeso have set their sights on bringing their therapies to developed Western markets. 'The pharma industry is the best industry in the world,' Akeso Chief Executive Officer Michelle Xia said in an April interview. 'At the end of the day, what we do benefits patients in China, in the US and all around the world.'
Mint
an hour ago
- Mint
EU Official Says Bloc to Explore Asia Pacts as US Tariffs Loom
The European Union is looking to deepen trade agreements with India and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region as the bloc braces for US tariffs, a top official said. 'We need to explore how far, how deep we can go in the Pacific area with other countries,' EU competition chief Teresa Ribera said on Bloomberg TV on Monday. 'For instance, these conversations that are ongoing with India are quite important,' she said, referring to free-trade talks with the South Asian nation expected to be completed by year's end. The EU is preparing to step up its engagement with other countries hit by US President Donald Trump's tariffs following a slew of new threats to the bloc and other US trading partners, Bloomberg has reported. Ribera spoke from Beijing where she is visiting for two days of climate-focused talks with Chinese officials including Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang. Ribera's meeting comes as Trump ramps up pressure on trading partners in the final weeks of negotiations ahead of his so-called reciprocal tariffs. While she suggested the EU will keep negotiating, the bloc will work harder to sell its wares to other places if the tariffs become a reality. 'We need to keep on working to build resilience and to build partnerships with the other partners, the other allies in the world that are also open and willing to apply the rule of law,' said Ribera, an executive vice-president of the European Commission. That will 'ensure that peaceful and fair trade flows keep on taking place.' Her visit will be followed by a EU-China summit next week, when EU and Chinese leaders may touch on thorny issues spanning trade and geopolitics. China has sought closer ties with the EU, but the bloc has raised concerns about Chinese industrial overcapacity, lack of market access for EU firms and Beijing's support for Moscow after it invaded Ukraine. Other EU complaints include fresh export controls by China on rare earth magnets that have hit European industries. There's also been little progress in resolving differences over the EU's decision to impose tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles over claims producers have benefited from unfair subsidies. 'It should not be a bottleneck killing the possibility of prosperity all over the world,' Ribera said in reference to China's control over rare earths. 'So that is another bullet where we will still need to talk, to discuss to avoid harm.' In an interview after she spoke on Bloomberg TV, Ribera said it was 'still a little bit premature' to discuss a joint communique or declaration with China on climate cooperation but emphasized there was a shared willingness between Brussels and Beijing to deepen talks. The EU is reluctant to sign a joint declaration on climate action with China at a mid-July meeting because of concerns about the pace of emissions reduction by the world's top polluting nation, the FT reported last week. The newspaper cited EU's climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, who was quoted as saying China isn't doing enough to commit to faster cuts. With assistance from Lucille Liu, James Mayger, Josh Xiao and Adrian Wong. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
