Polestar 2 output at the Luqiao plant in China has ended, Electrive reported on October 28, closing a run that began in March 2020 and produced just over 200,000 cars. The last units have reportedly left the line, though the company has made no official announcement. The model is leaving the range before its replacement arrives.
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Electrek, which followed a day later, says it is relying on Electrive and Norwegian broadcaster TV 2 Broom, and that the company has not confirmed the end of the line.
What 200,000 cars from Luqiao amounted to
Electrive’s report puts Luqiao output at just over 200,000 vehicles, while Polestar’s own last reported sales figure for the model was more than 190,000. In Norway alone more than 16,000 were sold, and Polestar Norge called the car decisive for the brand’s strong entry into that market. The model traces back to Volvo’s 2016 Concept 40.2 study, and in 2024 Polestar moved key variants from front- to rear-wheel drive and substantially revised the powertrain.
The car also carried more weight than its sales suggest, in Electrek’s telling. It was not the first Polestar, but it was the one that made Polestar a standalone brand. Geely, then Volvo’s Chinese owner, redirected the next two Volvo models in its pipeline, the C90 coupe and the C40, into Polestar models, and Polestar was later spun off through a SPAC merger as a separate, largely Chinese-owned company.
A gap before the successor
Polestar says the next generation will be a fundamentally new vehicle rather than a facelift, with a launch set for early 2027, according to Electrive. TV 2 Broom reports it will be a crossover, but Polestar has not confirmed the body style, the platform or where it will be built. Chief executive Michael Lohscheller said in February that the Polestar 2 is the foundation of the brand, citing more than 190,000 cars sold, and the company outlined an updated Polestar 2 for 2027 followed by an all-new Polestar 7 SUV in early 2028.
In the meantime, buyers in several European markets are being steered to stock cars instead of new configurable orders, and in Norway and Sweden new configurations are no longer accepted at all.
The company’s finances were already under strain. Polestar sold more than 60,000 cars in 2025, its best year, and its first-quarter 2026 gross margin fell to minus 3.2 percent from 10.3 percent a year earlier, even as 13,126 first-quarter deliveries made it the brand’s best opening quarter. The newest model is a long way from replacing the volume: the Polestar 4 is built in Busan, South Korea, and while first European deliveries are due in the fourth quarter of 2026, the German configurator shows January to February 2027 for German customers.
The timing shows up in the numbers. Polestar’s first-half 2026 global sales rose only 0.4 percent to 30,423 vehicles, and revenue fell about 4 percent to $1.36 billion even as the operating loss narrowed sharply. Full-year growth guidance was cut from low double-digit to low-to-mid single-digit percentage growth, with the Polestar 2 phase-out and changes in the United States among the reasons cited. Lohscheller has called Europe the company’s largest growth engine, and Polestar plans to build the Polestar 7 SUV there. Europe accounts for about 80 percent of sales, so a gap in the cheapest model lands where the volume is.
The American exit that sits behind the date
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security declined to authorize Polestar to sell vehicles under the Connected Vehicle Rule, so the brand will stop selling new cars in the United States beginning with model year 2027. The basis was ownership rather than where the cars are built: Geely, a Chinese automaker, is Polestar’s majority owner, while the Polestar 3 is built at Volvo’s plant in Charleston, South Carolina, and the Polestar 4 in Busan, South Korea. Volvo, also Geely-owned, received authorization to keep selling connected vehicles.
Existing inventory is still on sale at steep cuts. As of early July, Polestar was taking $25,000 off the Polestar 4, which started at about $31,400 after the discount, and $23,000 off the Polestar 3, which started at $44,500. Before the cut the Polestar 3 started at roughly $67,500 with a 111-kilowatt-hour battery and an EPA range of up to 350 miles, and Electrek said some buyers could pay under $40,000. The Polestar 3 Performance trim adds all-wheel drive rated at 380 kilowatts, about 517 horsepower, with a zero-to-60 time in the four-second range, and one reader said he bought a 2024 long-range Polestar 2 with 19,000 miles for under $22,000. Polestar has said it will keep servicing current American owners, and cars already sold should keep receiving software updates.
Several questions remain open that only Polestar can answer: the confirmed last build date, the final production total, the body style and factory of the successor, and whether any version of the refreshed Polestar 2 will ever be offered to American buyers. Electrek says fans there may still hold some hope for it, but the piece does not explain how that would get past the Commerce Department’s decision.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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