Polestar stops accepting customized Polestar 2 orders as a result of demand is simply too excessive

Polestar’s on-line configurator is not accepting new customized Polestar 2 orders, and Polestar says that the reason being as a result of demand is simply too excessive for its best-selling automobile.

Polestar has been having a little bit of a tough time these days. Whereas the corporate’s gross sales have been up 6% in 2023, that’s smaller progress than many of the EV trade has seen. Particularly, Polestar’s This autumn numbers ticked down in comparison with Q3, regardless of first deliveries of a brand new mannequin, the Polestar 4, occurring in This autumn.

Simply as we speak, the corporate obtained a big blow as Volvo determined to sever its relationship with Polestar, which was initially spun off from Volvo. This leaves Polestar’s different accomplice, Geely, and naturally Polestar itself, liable for Polestar’s destiny.

Nonetheless, the Polestar 2 did simply get a facelift, and deliveries of that began final quarter. This normally buoys gross sales of a automobile line, and sometimes results in a dropoff in previous quarters as prospects look forward to the brand new model of the automotive to come back out. However between Q3 and This autumn, that didn’t occur. Possibly Polestar hasn’t been in a position to scale manufacturing of the facelifted model shortly sufficient, or perhaps prospects have been simply not conscious of the facelift, however it’s nonetheless odd to see a drop within the quarter {that a} facelift comes out.

So one would possibly assume that issues are trying shaky for Polestar, however the firm’s order web site suggests in any other case.

In current days, prospects have apparently been unable to configure new customized Polestar 2 autos within the US. When making an attempt to take action, Polestar’s configurator web site states:

On account of excessive demand, we’re at present closed for brand spanking new manufacturing unit orders. Please discover our accessible vehicles to search out the best one for you.

Then, you may click on a button stating “test comparable vehicles for quick supply” to see whether or not there are any stock autos which match your order.

Upon checking just a few totally different configurations, there do appear to be a superb quantity of configurations accessible, a minimum of in Southern california the place I checked.

On the UK website, a barely totally different error message seems. Sure configurations will say “Configuration not accessible for manufacturing unit order. Evaluate your configuration with accessible vehicles,” however another configurations present that “quick supply is on the market” and provides a timeline when chosen. Both manner, no point out of demand throughout the pond, though the impact appears to be about the identical.

This isn’t the primary time this has occurred with an EV, although. A number of EVs find yourself getting numerous preorders, to the purpose the place corporations shut down further orders till they will work by the backlog. Tesla has performed this a number of instances up to now, right here’s one instance from 2022.

We reached out for added feedback, and a Polestar rep informed us that it’s “short-term and never associated to suppliers or manufacturing or something like that”. So not much more element there, however we do know that, at present, you may’t order a customized Polestar configuration, and must both wait till the configurator is reopened, or search for a listing automobile as a substitute.

Electrek’s Take

This story is fascinating given the fixed (and incorrect) media narrative these days that “EV demand is down” – a phrase that was used even in one other article we noticed protecting this very story about demand supposedly being too excessive for Polestar to satisfy.

This narrative is, in so many phrases, fallacious. EV demand isn’t down, it’s up, and so are EV gross sales. As a way to discover any indication of slowing progress in EVs, it’s important to go to the second spinoff of an EV gross sales chart. It will be extra correct to say that share progress of EV gross sales is decrease now than it has been up to now, however that’s a pure results of the bottom quantity getting bigger – 100 -> 1,000 is a 10x enhance, however 1,000 -> 5,000 is merely a 5x enhance, regardless of clearly being a a lot bigger enhance in uncooked quantity.

In the meantime, fuel automotive gross sales truly are happening, and but that narrative isn’t extensively reported on. It seems to be like fuel automobile gross sales peaked at 2017 and can possible by no means recuperate to that stage, whereas EV gross sales proceed to rise.

Nonetheless, there could be headwinds for sure particular person manufacturers (e.g. tax credit score availability, NACS assist coming however not but applied, provide disruptions, and so forth). And Polestar is likely one of the manufacturers that’s rising extra slowly than others these days, particularly when it’s comparatively smaller by way of deliveries, and due to this fact ought to have a better time producing greater share progress than a bigger firm would possibly (see the small/giant quantity comparability above).

So it truly is unusual to see this notification on Polestar’s web site, given the corporate’s extra modest current progress. We’d like to know a little bit extra about what sort of numbers we’re coping with right here, however in absence of that it seems to be like consumers will simply must scrounge round a bit in the meanwhile to discover a automotive near what they need.