For anyone who ever thought that a product recall automatically means a plunge in stock prices, Polestar Automotive Holding (NASDAQ: PSNY) will prove that’s not so. Polestar shares finished higher in Wednesday’s trading session.
The recall—posted Tuesday night via the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration—focused on faulty high-voltage battery cells. Said cells could overheat and, when fully charged, may ultimately start a fire in or around the vehicle. However, this isn’t a universal problem. The recall specifically focuses on 66 different Polestar models. The Polestar 2 is unaffected, and most of the problems seem confined to Polestar coupes.
Perhaps a bigger problem for affected owners is that the parts to make the recall effective won’t be available until sometime in the middle of 2023. The company has a plan for the short-term, however; it’s going to offer up a software update that will keep Polestar cars from charging all the way, thus avoiding the problem altogether.
The company also announced some new appointments in its North American division. It brought in Peter Wexler, Steven Radt, and Laura Chamoun, industry veterans with an eye toward improving growth at the company.
The last five days of trading have been fairly stable for Polestar. The stock was up around $5.20 as last week came to an end but slipped to $4.64 by Tuesday morning. Shares then recovered before slipping again to current levels. That’s a lot of movement but within a very tight range of about $0.60.
