Polestar electric vehicles arrive this week in North Naples at the first location for the brand in Southwest Florida. The new local dealership, temporarily hosted by Volvo Cars of Naples, is a coup for Joe Parisi, the local general manager and managing partner for both Swedish-based luxury car franchises.  

“We’ve been working on acquiring the franchise for over a year and going through the back and forth of conversation and dialogue and approvals with both the manufacturer and state,” Parisi said. “After a year of hard work and diligence, we got the franchise.”   

Polestar, which manufactures high-performance electric cars, began in Sweden in the 1990s as an automotive racing company. Volvo Car Group purchased the performance arm of Polestar in 2015 and Polestar 1 started as a Volvo concept coupe.   

“In 2017, Polestar spun off from the cloth of Volvo and became its own franchise with a different way of doing business and a different commitment to the auto industry as far as building sustainable vehicles that are all-electric. Although our first car’s a hybrid, the rest of them are and are going to be fully electric vehicles,” Parisi said, noting that Volvo remains a large stakeholder in the franchise, but Volvo and Polestar are individual franchises. 

While its shares began trading June 24 on the Nasdaq exchange under the symbol PSNY, Polestar has introduced four dealership locations in Florida: Naples, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach with a fifth planned in Miami. The Polestar Naples franchise kicked off July 1 and Volvo’s Florida dealer’s license was updated to reflect the additional brand on Thursday, when the dealership sold three Polestar cars online. Four or five new cars will be available later this week.  

“Because we are cousins, I was able to temporarily represent Polestar from our current facility at Volvo Naples, all the while, now and in the future servicing the Polestar product out of our service department here in Volvo,” Parisi said. “However, we are going to have a separate, stand-alone location, which they call spaces. Polestar doesn’t call them sales showrooms or showrooms; they call them spaces.”  

Details about the permanent Polestar space in North Naples will be announced soon but, until then, the franchise will be based at Volvo, 5870 Naples Blvd. Because it’s a new manufacturer and franchise, Polestar features a limited inventory.   

“At our space, we’re going to have three cars on display inside,” he said. “And, then, we’ll always have at least two vehicles to test drive, and we should always have a selection of vehicles that you can take immediately or you can order a vehicle that will be a couple of months or a few months.” 

The all-electric Polestar cars will be positioned in the premium luxury segment. “We have a big product rollout coming in the next couple of years,” Parisi said. “Right now, we have the Polestar 2, which is a four-door sedan with the fifth door being the split hatch in the rear. It’s a really good-looking, four-door, sporty-looking vehicle that’s all-electric. We have the Polestar 3 coming out, which is a clean-air, premium luxury SUV. That will be out at the end of the year. Then, that’s going to be followed by the Polestar 4 and the Polestar 5. That will be another larger SUV and another executive sedan.”  

Then, all eyes will be on the Polestar Precept, a futuristic electric concept expected to launch in 2024. “It’s like a supercar, really, a four-door supercar,” Parisi said.  

Complementing its car’s cutting-edge technology, Polestar’s dealerships operate untraditionally, sidestepping the traditional sales process. “A consumer’s going to be able to go online from their living room or their office and go through the entire process digitally and view inventory, select inventory, get their pricing and payments all figured out and being able to put a deposit on the vehicle or order the vehicle and they never have to step foot in the dealership, other than maybe coming in to sign some papers and taking the car,” Parisi said. “It’s a pretty streamlined, seamless process. It’s kind of a breath of fresh air for consumers not having to go through the arm-wrestling battle of car dealer tactics.”  

Of course, car buyers also always have the option of coming in, shaking somebody’s hand and doing face-to-face traditional business at the dealership, if desired, he said.