On April 23rd, Polestar, an all-electric high-performance car brand, held a Polestar brand night in Beijing with the theme of "Rising to the Stars", with actors Zhou Xun and Chen Kun joining forces to become the spokespersons of Polestar.
However, what has attracted more attention is the official release of Polestar Phone, the first Polestar mobile phone jointly created by Polestar and Meizu, priced at 7,388 yuan, which has become the sixth domain of Polestar cars through Polestar Link, bringing users an intelligent ecological experience of unbounded cross-terminal connectivity.
The phone has a simple design with a Nordic cool feel, but the UI and appearance are very recognizable.
Created by the Polestar design team in Gothenburg, Sweden, and the Meizu design team, the overall design is inspired by Polestar cars, and its designers say it has a scandinavian-inspired minimalist look.
The exterior of the Polestar White is based on the iconic Swedish gold detailing, echoing the Brembo brake calipers, signature seat belts and valve colors in the Polestar Performance Package, and in terms of UI design, all the icons and colors of the Polestar Phone operating system follow the same logic as the Polestar OS, with orange for communication applications, yellow for system applications, red for multimedia applications, etc.
At the same time, it integrates mainstream AI large model resources, and is an AI mobile phone, and its AI function can call the performance of the mobile phone.
Among them, two high-frequency AI functions such as intelligent voice and image processing can be experienced out of the box.
The AI intelligent voice assistant can turn the phone into a real personal assistant and portable encyclopedia, and can also act as a translator and language teacher, the AI image tool can remove clutter from existing photos to ensure that every wonderful moment can be perfect, and the AI image search function supports voice search to help you quickly retrieve the good memories of the past. More functions that are easy to invoke AI capabilities, such as AI-assisted input and AI smart keys, will be pushed to users through OTA in the future.
In terms of hardware configuration, the Polestar Phone is equipped with the third-generation Snapdragon 8 mobile platform with 4nm process technology, and the third-generation Snapdragon 8 mobile platform, combined with the LPDDR5X and UFS4.0 storage combination to form a performance iron triangle, which is the flagship specification of this year's Android phone.
So what is the chemistry of the combination of mobile phones and smart cars?
Shen Ziyu once proposed the concept of the mobile phone domain, which is the sixth domain of the car.
Through Polestar Link, you can realize the non-inductive connection between the mobile phone and the motor, seamless handover, hardware synergy, and computing power sharing, and continue the good experience of the mobile phone ecosystem on the car.
The Polestar Phone is the "sixth domain" of Polestar cars, truly connecting the phone and the car for a more complete car experience.
At the press conference, Polestar showcased a number of new features that will be available on OTAs this year, including UWB mobile phone digital key, cross-device visibility and talk, mobile phone-assisted vehicle OTA, unbounded photo album streaming, address replication and circulation, global gesture control and more.
The Polestar Phone's UWB digital key has ultra-wideband coverage compared to Bluetooth, which can achieve centimeter-level precise positioning and true unlocking of the vehicle. With Polestar Phone, users can also download the upgrade package locally on their phone, making the OTA stable and convenient for the car.
The beautiful pictures taken by the mobile phone during the self-driving trip, back to the car, the pictures can be watched with family and friends on the large screen of the car through the circulation of the unbounded album, and enjoy the convenience and shock brought by the large screen. When friends meet and travel, you can receive the address sent by your friend on WeChat on your mobile phone, and you only need to click to copy the address to automatically open the navigation on the car machine, without repeatedly jumping multiple APPs, so as to realize the non-inductive flow of the navigation address.
In terms of interactive experience, the Polestar OS intelligent cockpit system will bring new improvements and optimizations in gesture control and voice control, which can realize cross-terminal intelligent voice control, and you can enjoy Douyin without using your hands. At the same time, Polestar will also develop one-click scene functions for high-frequency scenarios such as car washes, naps, and pet rides, as well as CarPlay for Apple users, making it easier for users to use their cars.
At the same time as the launch of the phone, Polestar officially launched the Polestar 4 Dual Star Connected Edition, making the Polestar Phone the perfect companion to the Polestar 4. The Polestar 4 Twin Connected Edition is available in two configurations, starting at 339,900 yuan for the Single-Motor Standard Range Plus Dual-Star Connected Edition and 399,900 yuan for the Dual-Motor Long Range Plus Dual-Star Connected Edition.
Shen Ziyu said that in the era of cross-terminal connectivity, Polestar will continue to improve the ecosystem around the concept of All in One Polestar OS, from the car to the mobile phone to more smart devices, the Polestar Phone can achieve more than that, with the blessing of Polestar Link, with the continuous development of mobile phone technology, especially AI technology on the mobile phone, the driver interconnection will create more imagination space for AI-empowered cockpits.
Of course, as a consumer, both mobile phones and cars are a little expensive.
However, this kind of cross-terminal interconnection imagination space does have its charming.
In recent years, smartphone manufacturers led by Huawei and Xiaomi have penetrated into the automotive field, and with the launch of the Polestar Phone, vehicle manufacturers represented by Polestar and NIO have chosen to extend the smart car ecosystem to mobile phone products, and Geely (including Polestar), NIO, Xiaomi, and Huawei have become the companies that are currently involved in automotive mobile phones.
It has its own advantages in connecting the mobile phone ecology and the car machine ecology, which also makes the human-vehicle interaction experience of the models of these four brands more natural.
However, the demand for cross-brand interconnection between mobile phones and car machines in the market is also becoming a trend.
For example, Huawei mobile phones and Huawei car machines can achieve seamless application flow, but Apple mobile phones and Huawei car machines cannot do this.
Therefore, when many mobile phone brands emphasize the unbounded connection with mobile phones, they are actually tying up consumers.
On this point, Li Bin of NIO is very candid, and he suggests that the mobile phone produced by the car brand can be used as a second phone, which can be used as a car key, or as a controller to control the functions of the car's cockpit and other matters.
Judging from the price of the Polestar Phone, as a flagship, the price is acceptable, but as a second phone, it is slightly more expensive.
And as a giveaway for the purchase of a Polestar 4, this pricing can give consumers an extra sense of surprise.
Obviously it's a promotional mix.
As a customized cooperation between Meizu and Polestar, it will help to expand the brand awareness of Polestar.
At present, Polestar 4 is the main sales model of Polestar cars, since the pre-sale of Polestar at the Shanghai Auto Show last year, Polestar and Meizu established Polestar Technology to be responsible for Polestar's sales in the Chinese market, Shen Ziyu became the chairman and CEO, and Polestar began to make a high profile.
But the ill-fated brand's high-end luxury route has mismatched the nasty situation of a two-year price war in China's electric vehicle market.
Shen Ziyu, the chairman of Polestar Technology, is also the direct head of Meizu Mobile, ECARX and SiEngine Technology, and at the end of last year, Chen Siying, a veteran of Geely who returned from Xpeng Motors, became the chief operating officer of Polestar Technology.
However, after straightening out the management relationship, Polestar's newly revealed Internet personality is weakening again.
Several EV brands that are currently well-known in the Chinese market are closely related to the personality of their founders or directors.
And when Polestar starts looking for spokespeople, it means that the party dealing directly with consumers will no longer be the company's leader.
For Polestar, there are pros and cons.
At Polestar Night, Polestar showcased the Synergy concept car, a single-seater electric supercar concept.
It is the culmination of the third edition of the Polestar Global Design Competition, which was developed over a six-month period by the Polestar design team and the winners of the competition. Inspired by timeless nature and emotion, the Polestar Synergy features a single-seater floating interior design with control at its core, perfectly reflecting Polestar's high-performance philosophy. Its height is 1.07 meters, and its length is 4.56 meters.
However, it is unlikely to be mass-produced.
So far, Polestar has launched three models, Polestar 1, Polestar 2 and Polestar 4.
The Polestar 2 was the most successful, setting the benchmark for performance and luxury in its class worldwide, with around 175,000 Polestar 2 units sold worldwide since deliveries began in 2020.
There are two more Polestar products coming soon, the Polestar 3 and the Polestar 5.
The Polestar 3 is an ultra-luxury electric SUV that will soon be delivered worldwide. As Polestar's most luxurious and advanced SUV for the electric era, the suspension, steering and braking systems were tweaked by MIRA's engineering team.
The Polestar 5, an evolution of Polestar's Polestar Precept concept car introduced in 2020, is scheduled to start production at the Chongqing plant in 2025. It's based on Polestar's full-stack bonded aluminium platform. The platform brings together the experience of engineers designing F1 racing and supercars in the British automotive industry, and aims to continue to cement the Polestar brand's position at the top of the automotive industry's performance scene.
But for these models to be successful in China, Polestar 4 needs to have a good market performance.
Shen Ziyu called 2024 the "year of breakthrough in China" for Polestar, but even if Polestar and Polestar Phone have built a "two-star connected" intelligent ecosystem, with Zhou Xun and Chen Kun as two spokespersons, whether it is a mobile phone or a car, there is still a lack of cost performance in the Chinese market.
This is a common problem faced by a series of pure electric brands that take the high-end route at present.
Whether Polestar can get out of the predicament of being popular or not requires a unique way to break the game, and it also requires a clearer positioning of the entire Geely series of Polestar.