Why Polestar Automotive Stock Crashed Today

Swedish electric car company Polestar Automotive (NASDAQ: PSNY) stock got in a one-way car crash this morning, tumbling 16.5% through 10:25 a.m. ET after the company reported third-quarter results this morning.

Analysts had Polestar pegged for a $0.13-per-share loss heading into the report. It's not 100% clear whether Polestar beat or missed that target, but my hunch is that it missed.

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Polestar Q3 earnings

Polestar reported losing $365.3 million in Q3 on $748 million in revenue, you see, but didn't break that loss down into a per-share figure. Based on a reported 2.1 billion shares outstanding, however, I calculate the company's per-share loss at roughly $0.17 -- which would mean Polestar missed by $0.04, reporting losses roughly 21% worse than expected.

And that would explain why the stock is down so much today.

Is Polestar stock a buy?

Polestar noted furthermore that its losses year to date exceeded $1.5 billion, putting the company on course to lose more than $2 billion through the end of this year -- nearly $1 per share if my math is right. Worse news for Polestar, a loss of that magnitude would be about 50% bigger than the $0.67 per share analysts expect Polestar to lose, according to the latest data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Long story short, Polestar went into Wednesday boasting that it grew revenue 49% in the first nine months of 2025, reduced costs, and sold $123 million in carbon credits. None of this was sufficient to keep Polestar's losses from growing. Gross margin remains deeply negative, and the big surge in electric vehicle sales from the expiration of U.S. tax credits in Q3 has already begun to evaporate.

I cannot recommend an investment in Polestar stock.

Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.