The Polestar 4 will launch in China with its personal smartphone

Polestar, the Swedish EV maker owned by China’s Geely Holdings, plans to launch a smartphone alongside its upcoming SUV the Polestar 4. CEO Thomas Ingenlath shared the corporate’s smartphone plans with CNBC in the course of the IAA Mobility occasion in Germany.

Polestar confirmed the information with Information World, noting that that is part of the joint venture introduced in June with Chinese language smartphone maker Xingji Meizu. Geely founder and chairman Eric Li’s smartphone firm Xingji Know-how acquired Meizu in July 2022.

The 2 corporations will collectively develop a person interface in Polestar EVs bought in China. The telephone is being designed by the design workforce at Polestar and manufactured by Meizu, Polestar advised Information World.

The transfer could seem uncommon to U.S. and European shoppers. However in China, the place there’s more and more competitors, automakers are on the lookout for any technological edge. Polestar isn’t the primary automaker to experiment with its personal branded smartphone in a bid to enchantment to Chinese language shoppers who’ve an urge for food for seamless connectivity between their telephones and automobiles. Final month, Nio introduced plans to launch a smartphone in September.

The automaker expects to be start manufacturing of the Polestar 4 — its third mannequin to be bought in China — later this yr.