View Comments The increasingly active role Elon Musk is playing in global politics is turning off many Tesla Inc. customers and creating an opening for Polestar, the rival EV maker’s chief executive officer said. “We get a lot of people writing that they don’t like all this,” Polestar CEO Michael Lohscheller told Bloomberg News in an interview. “It’s important to listen closely to what they say. And I can tell you, a lot of people have very, very negative sentiment.” Lohscheller, 56, said he’s told salespeople to target disgruntled Tesla owners for potential business. Polestar could use the help that its CEO hopes to get from Musk asserting himself in Washington, Berlin and Westminster. The maker of premium electric vehicles is coming off another year of disappointing sales that were well short of initial projections made in 2021, when it struck a deal to go public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Lohscheller called Musk a “very successful businessman” and said he’s “done incredible things with Tesla.” He didn’t mince words, however, about Musk’s emphatic support for the far-right Alternative for Germany party. “For Germany, somebody outside of Germany endorsing right-wing political parties is a big thing,” said Lohscheller, who was born in Bocholt, North Rhine-Westphalia. “You want to know what I think about it? I think it’s totally unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. You just don’t do that. This is pure arrogance, and these things will not work.” Musk didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. Tesla’s vehicle deliveries declined last year for the first time in over a decade. Polestar was spun out of Volvo Car by the Swedish carmaker and its Chinese parent, Geely Holding Group, four years ago. Its US-listed shares have plummeted 92% since the company’s market debut in June 2022. Tesla’s stock has soared 73% in that span. Lohscheller, a former head of German carmaker Opel, became CEO of Polestar in October. His predecessor, Thomas Ingenlath, had led the company since 2017. Lohscheller expects Polestar to increase retail sales by as much as 35% annually over the next three years by moving to a more traditional dealership model and rolling out new vehicles, including a compact SUV. The company previously took a Tesla-like approach to retailing, letting car shoppers kick tires and book test drives through showrooms while taking orders online. “It is so obvious basic things were just being missed,” Lohscheller said of Polestar’s early years. “If you don’t have an active selling model in an industry which is ultra-competitive, that’s a big miss.” Polestar is burning through around $110 million a month, a level that Chief Financial Officer Jean-Francois Mady called unsustainable and unacceptable during an investor briefing last week. The company plans to address this by reducing inventory and capital expenditures after spending heavily to launch the Polestar 3 sport utility vehicle, the 4 SUV coupe and the 5 sports sedan. After ending the third quarter with $501 million in cash, Polestar secured more than $800 million in December from banks it didn’t identify. The company is looking to line up an additional $400 million via a loan facility expected to be available before the end of this month. “We will first have to bring the funding needs down significantly,” Lohscheller said Wednesday. Once Polestar shows progress on that front, he said, securing equity investment that allows the company to execute for the next three years is “of highest importance.” ___With assistance from Anna Edwards, Jamie Nimmo and Craig Trudell.