Volvo Cars will invest another $118 million in its Ridgeville plant to build the Polestar 3, an all-electric sport utility vehicle for the performance brand it co-owns with China’s Geely Holding Group, the companies announced Wednesday.

The SUV will be built on Volvo Car Group’s next-generation electric architecture under a contract with Polestar, according to Volvo. It will join the S60 sedan, the only model the Berkeley County plant builds now, and the next generation of electrified Volvo cars that will come out of the same facility.

The first Polestar 3 is scheduled to roll off the line in 2022, The Post and Courier reported. Polestar did not say how many it will build each year in Berkeley County.

With the new money, Volvo’s cumulative investment in its South Carolina operation tops $1.2 billion, “with room for future growth,” the company said.

“Our South Carolina team has done a remarkable job producing the award-winning S60 and readying the plant for the next generation of electrified Volvo cars,” Javier Varela, Volvo Car Group’s senior vice president of industrial operations and quality, said in a statement. “Now, with the contract to produce the fully electric Polestar 3, we continue to expand our manufacturing operations for electrified vehicles.”

“We are proud to bring these new growth opportunities to Ridgeville and continue to grow our presence in the United States,” said Anders Gustafsson, president and CEO of Volvo Car USA.

Polestar’s first U.S.-built car

Polestar is the Swedish electric performance brand that Volvo Cars and Geely Holding launched in 2017. The Polestar 3 will be its first SUV and its first vehicle built in the United States. The company said the Polestar 3 built in South Carolina will be sold in the U.S. market.

“Polestar 3 will be built in America, for our American customers,” Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath said in the company’s announcement. He added: “I am proud that our first SUV will be manufactured in South Carolina. From now on, the USA is no longer an export market but a home market.”

“Production in the USA makes procurement more efficient, reduces delivery times and will even have a positive impact on the price of the Polestar 3 SUV,” Polestar Chief Operating Officer Dennis Nobelius said in a written statement, The Post and Courier reported.

Polestar is keeping the vehicle’s design under wraps, saying only that it will have a futuristic look with an emphasis on aerodynamic efficiency, according to the newspaper. The SUV will debut Volvo Car Group’s new generation of electric vehicle architecture, designed from scratch for full electrification, and will run an infotainment system based on Google’s Android Automotive operating system, Polestar said.

The vehicles are aimed at U.S. buyers, but some might be exported, the company told The Post and Courier. Polestar will also build the Polestar 3 in China for that market. Production is expected to begin globally in 2022, Polestar said.

Polestar also plans to open about 25 retail showrooms in the United States, which it calls Spaces. The expansion follows the $550 million Polestar raised from a group of long-term outside investors in April, the company said.

What it means for the plant

The plant will add Volvo’s top-selling XC90 SUV, in electric and hybrid versions, on a second production line in 2023, The Post and Courier reported.

The Ridgeville site employs about 1,500 people and expects to have as many as 4,000 once the next-generation XC90 begins production, the newspaper reported.

The plant has built small batches of Polestar-engineered cars before. In 2019, it built 20 high-performance S60s with a matte gray finish picked by Volvo CEO Håkan Samuelsson, The Post and Courier reported, and a similar limited-edition S60 built in 2018 sold out its 20-car allotment in 39 minutes.

Volvo is also investing in its workforce and retailer network. It is opening a training and development building, part of its Volvo Car University campus, in Ridgeville, with a grand opening planned for June 23, Live 5 News reported. Executives will also update the community then on the expansion for the Polestar 3 and the electrified Volvo cars to follow.

Sales picture

Volvo set a U.S. sales record for May, selling 13,221 cars, up 38.9% from May 2020, The Post and Courier reported. It has sold 51,496 cars in the U.S. so far this year, including 5,064 S60 sedans.

Volvo recently announced that all of its new cars will be battery-powered beginning in 2030, the newspaper reported.