Polestar expands sales network in Australia

More Aussie electric car buyers will soon be able to assess models from the Sino-Swedish brand Polestar in the metal rather than just over the internet.

Polestar currently retails almost entirely through factory-owned spaces in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane but is signing up independent dealers to expand its local footprint and grow sales as it rolls out the Polestar 3 and Polestar 4 SUVs to join the Polestar 2.

However, the recruitment of dealers does not mean a switch from the controversial set-price agency model to traditional franchising, which allows haggling between dealer and customers over pricing.

Cars will still only be bought online either remotely or with assistance from Polestar reps in the outlets/spaces. The only negotiation between dealers and customers will be over the price of used cars and demonstrators.

The Polestar retail expansion isn’t dramatic in raw numbers.

There are currently five factory-owned spaces including a brand new Artarmon site in Sydney and when the dust settles on negotiations there will be seven sites across Australia.

However, at least some of the existing spaces will have independent dealer management and some could also change location.

It’s understood two retailer-backed spaces in Perth and Hobart will continue on.

There could be further network expansion as the seven outlets expected to be finalised by the end of 2024 won’t include coverage of places such as Canberra.

“There are a couple of good reasons for the change,” new Polestar Australia CEO Scott Maynard told carsales.

“The established retailers have their foot on property that would be super-expensive for us to try and access to continue to run factory-owned space networks on.

“We really want to start to see now we have a more filled out model range … close to more and more of our customers and the retailers can take us there much faster than we can get there and without the unnecessary mucking around of property,” Maynard stated.

“It gets us to more people quicker.

“We’re also probably doing a bit of a change from 'let’s just display the car and leave it there' to actually starting to properly represent and sell the car.”

The move to what Maynard calls a “hybrid” sales model is a global shift by Polestar rather than being exclusive to Australia.

However, the sales strategy is different overseas, with UK dealers able to “share” their commissions with customers, meaning they can discount the price of new vehicles if they so choose.

In Australia Polestar has recently achieved 5000 Polestar 2 sales since its launch in 2022.

Maynard said the retail expansion combined with the new models would push up sales but stressed the small network reflected a desire for “exclusivity”.

“We don’t want to be on every street corner, there is still going to be a degree of exclusivity commensurate with a luxury brand so it’s still going to be really compact.

“But it will put us in front of a much wider audience and it will make the product so much more accessible to the people that want to drive it and own it.”