A number of years ago, I did something unusual. For the first time in my 25-year career in journalism, I considered doing a different job. In 2018, I was invited to an interview with the chief executive of an early phase start-up, which was looking for someone with “storytelling skills”. When the time came, I met Thomas Ingenlath, a German car designer-turned-CEO, in his studio outside Gothenburg, Sweden. Trim and intense, and dressed in pure black, Ingenlath cut something of a Steve Jobsian figure.
We sat on high stools at an Apple Store-style wooden table, illuminated from above by diffuse museum lighting, and he gave me the pitch for Polestar, a newish Volvo subsidiary focused on perfecting electric cars. The start-up, the theory went, would benefit from access to the 91-year-old company’s engineering and manufacturing expertise, but be totally free to rethink outdated industry shibboleths. Its vehicles’ technology wouldn’t be 10 years behind, and its dealerships would be minimalist Scandi cathedrals.
