The electric car manufacturer Polestar is replacing its boss. As the company announced on Tuesday, Michael Lohscheller (55) will take over from Thomas Ingenlath (60) from October 1st. Officially it was said that Ingenlath was resigning from his position. The former one Volkswagen-Designer had led Polestar as CEO since its founding in spring 2017.
Michael Lohscheller’s career takes another turn. The Bocholt native once worked as head of finance for Volkswagen in North America before joining the board in 2012 Opel changed. After being taken over by today’s StellantisGroup, as Opel boss, he pushed forward the restructuring of the Rüsselsheim-based car manufacturer between June 2017 and September 2021. This was followed by engagements with the Vietnamese Vinfast group and the American one Nikola Group, which, however, quickly ended again.
It is said in Lohscheller’s environment that the relationship with the owners in Vietnam was not right, and that Lohscheller resigned from his position at Nikola because of an illness in the family. Most recently, Lohscheller returned to office as President of the Association of International Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Germany in appearance.
So now the move to Gothenburg. Lohscheller can put his experience as a renovator to good use at Polestar. The electric car maker is struggling, burning through almost $1.5 billion last year. Main shareholder Volvo gave up a large part of its shares to its parent company Geely in the spring. In just over two years on the New York tech stock exchange, the car manufacturer has gone from a $20 billion valuation to a penny stock. Polestar’s sales are sluggish; after almost 51,500 deliveries in 2022, the brand was only able to increase minimally to 54,600 units last year. In the first half of 2024, sales fell to just 20,200 new cars.
This was recently slowed down primarily by the delayed launch of the Polestar 3. The brand was only active on the market with one model, the Polestar 2, for significantly longer than planned. If the turnaround is to succeed, we now need to catch up. In addition to the Polestar 3, the manufacturer is currently starting deliveries of its third model, the Polestar 4, in Europe. Some observers fear that both cars could cannibalize each other due to the short distance between them. Polestar, on the other hand, is hoping for a boost, with “155,000 to 165,000” deliveries planned for 2025, the manufacturer recently said. The manager magazine recently wrote, 2025 will be a “year of decision” for Polestar.
According to reports from Gothenburg, main shareholder Geely and the future chairman of the supervisory board, Winfried Vahland (67), no longer believed that the turnaround could be successful under Thomas Ingenlath. In October, Vahland will replace Håkan Samuelsson (73) at the head of the control committee, who set up Polestar together with Ingenlath. Former Volkswagen top manager Vahland had already implemented a number of changes at the brand, such as a new head of sales and new country heads USA, Norway and Great Britain installed. Most recently, Polestar announced the commitment of the long-standing Audi-Designer Philipp Römers announced as the new chief designer.
Vahland is also taking organizational measures: Instead of primarily wanting to sell the cars directly, Polestar will work more with dealers in the future. Geely is behind the course, it is said. The hope of making Polestar successful as the only global pure electric premium brand remains. To achieve this, higher sales figures must now come and profitability must increase. Instead of designer Ingenlath, controller Lohscheller can now try his hand at it.