China is the world’s largest auto Market, with nearly 30 million cars sold there last year, and automakers of all stripes are eager to grab a piece of the action, especially with electric vehicles. Tesla, Ford, General Motors, and most luxury brands offer broad product lines in the country, and that includes Volvo and Polestar, both owned by Chinese auto giant Geely. That relationship with China gives the automakers the ability to offer unique products there, and Polestar’s latest innovation is a great example. It has developed a new smartphone that it plans to sell with its debut SUV in the country, the Polestar 4. 

The company is partnering with Xingji Meizu, a small smartphone manufacturer, on the project, and Polestar’s CEO said the move is due to customers’ expectation that their cars function as an extension of their smartphones. “Where you have an opportunity to link these two worlds, without any border, then you can really have a seamless transition,” Thomas Ingenlath said. 

Polestar’s device will be positioned on the premium side of the market, a move uptown for Meizu, which typically builds slightly cheaper Android phones. As CNBC pointed out, the customization that the operating system brings will allow Polestar to create a close link between the device and the car, including having the phone function as the primary key. 

[Image: Polestar]

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