{"id":331092,"date":"2025-12-23T06:12:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T06:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/331092\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T06:12:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T06:12:11","slug":"polestar-closes-final-uk-rd-facility-as-it-takes-900-million-lifeline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/331092\/","title":{"rendered":"Polestar closes final UK R&D facility as it takes $900 million lifeline"},"content":{"rendered":"

Electric car brand Polestar has been granted a US$600 million (A$900 million) loan from parent company Geely, just days before it closed its second and final research and development facility in the United Kingdom (UK).<\/p>\n

According to Reuters<\/a>, Geely \u2013 which also owns Lotus, Lynk & Co, Zeekr and a majority stake in Volvo \u2013 loaned Polestar the sum as a \u201cshareholder loan\u201d, meaning it does not count towards the struggling brand\u2019s US$5.5 billion (A$8.25 billion) debt.<\/p>\n

The full amount of the loan won\u2019t be available immediately, with the second half to be released subject to Polestar\u2019s future liquidity.<\/p>\n

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In 2026, Polestar will launch an 800-volt version of its Polestar 3<\/a>, while Australian showrooms will see the arrival of the Porsche Taycan<\/a>-rivalling Polestar 5<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Polestar 5 was developed in the UK, where the company closed its final research and development centre last Friday, December 19, 2025.<\/p>\n

The closures cost 130 jobs and follow plans announced in early 2024 to cut 450 jobs from its 2100-strong global workforce.<\/p>\n

Polestar secured a US$200 million (A$300 million) loan earlier this year from PSD Investment, a company run by Geely founder Li Shufu.<\/p>\n

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In November 2025, the Swedish brand reported a US$365 million (A$548 million) loss in the third quarter (July\u2013September), on top of a US$1.03 billion (A$1.55 billion) loss<\/a> in the previous quarter.<\/p>\n

This came despite higher global sales, with year-to-date deliveries to the end of August 2025 up 36 per cent, from 32,595 to 44,482.<\/p>\n

The larger losses were impacted by import tariffs introduced in the United States (US) in April 2025<\/a> \u2013 with subsequent changes creating ongoing uncertainty \u2013 as well as shifting emissions regulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe result of Q3 has clearly been disappointing for us\u2026 we are continuing to suffer pricing pressure on our vehicles, in addition to having a higher cost of production due to the duties,\u201d said Polestar finance chief Jean-Francois Mady on an earnings call.<\/p>\n

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Further challenging Polestar, in the United States the federal electric vehicle (EV) tax credit of US$7500 (A$11,256) and the US$4000 (A$6000) used EV incentive were axed in September<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Australian federal government is also weighing up potential changes to EV incentives locally<\/a> as it examines the Fringe Benefits Tax exemption for \u2018fuel efficient vehicles\u2019.<\/p>\n

Polestar Australia\u2019s year-to-date sales to the end of November<\/a> stood at 2188, compared with 1536 at the same point in 2024.<\/p>\n

MORE: Explore the Polestar showroom<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Electric car brand Polestar has been granted a US$600 million (A$900 million) loan from parent company Geely, just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-331092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}