Vehicle attack in Vancouver devastates a vibrant and growing Filipino community

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — For Bennet Miemban-Ganata, owner of a popular Filipino restaurant in Vancouver, the arrival of spring means a season of fiestas, bringing both good business and celebrations of culture.

From Filipino Restaurant Month in April to Filipino Heritage Month in June, there would be colorful clothes, folk dances and traditional food like crispy lumpia, marinated and grilled pork belly, and beef stew. And of course, there would be togetherness for Vancouver's rapidly growing Filipino community.

All that made Saturday night's vehicle-ramming attack on a large crowd at a Filipino block party all the more devastating.

“We felt ... the whole day that it’s a fun celebration, that people are happy being together,” Miemban-Ganata said as she fought back tears Monday during an interview at her restaurant, Plato Filipino. “We were just there to have fun, to know that we have each other in a foreign land.”

A black Audi SUV barreled down a closed, food-truck-lined street and struck people attending the Lapu Lapu Day festival, which celebrates Datu Lapu-Lapu, an Indigenous chieftain who stood up to Spanish explorers in the 16th century.

Eleven people were killed, including a 5-year-old girl and her parents. Thirty-two people were hurt. Seven were in critical condition and three were in serious condition at hospitals on Monday, Vancouver Police Department spokesperson Steve Addison said.

Authorities quickly ruled out terrorism. The driver, 30-year-old Kai-Ji Adam Lo, faces multiple counts of second-degree murder, police said, and he had a history of mental illness that had prompted law enforcement responses, including one the day before the attack. His brother was the victim of a homicide in 2024, and Lo wrote in an online fundraising appeal that he was devastated by that killing.

The festival is a testament to the growing presence of the Filipino community in the Vancouver area. Filipino-owned shops and restaurants, like Plato Filipino, have proliferated, especially in South Vancouver. Miemban-Ganata said her restaurant serves as a gathering place, one where people feel comfortable enough to leave their kids when they’re pinched for child care.

Over the weekend, British Columbia Premier David Eby vowed not to let the tragedy define the celebration and urged people to channel their rage into helping those affected.

“I don’t think there is a British Columbian that hasn’t been touched in some way by the Filipino community,” he said. “This is a community that gives and gives and yesterday was a celebration of their culture.”

Filipino immigration to Canada was heavily restricted until the 1960s, when Filipino immigrants began arriving to help offset labor shortages in Canada’s health care, garment and other industries, according to a Canadian Historical Association report. Now many work in finance, caregiving, real estate and other sectors.

Filipinos are the third-largest Asian immigrant population in Canada with nearly 1 million residents, and more than one-third arrived in the previous decade, according to the 2021 census. And roughly 175,000 live in British Columbia, mostly in the Vancouver area, where they make up a little more more than 5% of the population.

The community's growth helped prompt the formation in 2023 of Filipino BC, a nonprofit that seeks to foster Filipino Canadian heritage. Filipino BC has advocated for a Filipino cultural center and organized the first Lapu Lapu Day celebration last year. The festival is already so popular that it has attracted attendees from Seattle and Toronto, said RJ Aquino, chair of the organization's board.

“It's really a festival designed to celebrate and share our culture,” Aquino said. “Everybody also just loves having a big party.”

Aquino grew up in the Philippines and moved briefly to the U.S. as a teenager before settling in the Vancouver area in the 1990s. The Filipino community was small then — “It really did feel like everybody knew each other,” he said — and even now it's not uncommon to meet a stranger and learn that they're related through an aunt or uncle.

As he stood before a memorial of flowers and a white cross, he called the weekend "the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.” He had left the festival to have dinner with his family when he received a call about the attack and raced back.

The community's “first imperative,” he said, was “to just be present with each other and make sure we don't feel alone.” The city of Vancouver and Province of British Columbia had been active in offering support services, he noted.

“The Filipino community knows how to be resilient,” Aquino said. “How that manifests this time around — from a tragedy we've never experienced, on a scale like this — we're going to see how it plays out, and I'm going to make sure we come out of this stronger.”

Johnson reported from Seattle.

April Palma, center, helps a customer at Plato Filipino restaurant in Vancouver, British Columbia, Monday, April 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Wendell Gomez, left, places a candle at a memorial for victims after a vehicle drove into a crowd during a Filipino heritage festival in Vancouver, British Columbia, Monday, April 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Art hangs on a wall at Plato Filipino restaurant in Vancouver, British Columbia, Monday, April 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Renzo Javier, second from right, and John Eranzo, right, chat outside Plato Filipino restaurant in Vancouver, British Columbia, Monday, April 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

An attendee reacts at a memorial for victims after a vehicle drove into a crowd during a Filipino heritage festival in Vancouver, British Columbia, Monday, April 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

People shop at Sari-Sari Filipino Convenience Store in Vancouver, British Columbia, Monday, April 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

GOTHENBURG, Sweden--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 12, 2025--

Polestar (Nasdaq: PSNY) reports select financial and operational results for the quarter ended March 31, 2025 (Q1 2025).

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250512313129/en/

Michael Lohscheller, Polestar CEO, said: “We continue to make great progress, transforming our commercial operations and taking steps to reduce our cost base. We are selling more cars, at improved margins, resulting in revenue growth of 84%, a gross margin that is now positive, at 7%, and a narrowing net loss. We have a strong and growing line-up of attractive cars, with an expanding network of retail partners across key markets. The geopolitical environment and market conditions are challenging, but we are on the right track and doing the right things.”

Key financial highlights

Preliminary key operational highlights

The table below summarizes key preliminary operational highlights as of and for the three months ended March 31, 2025:

Key loan facilities and funding highlights

As previously announced regarding the Company’s USD 950 million ‘club loan’, the lenders agreed to amend the revenue covenant for 2024 to ensure its compliance and also agreed to waive testing of the year-end 2024 and Q1 2025 debt-to-asset ratio covenant. The Company is continuing to have a constructive dialogue with lenders regarding its future club loan obligations.

We continue to work closely with Geely Group on securing new equity and debt funding.

The Company is still at an acceptable debt level in relation to its loan covenants.

Key recent developments

Key business and operational highlights

Unaudited reconciliation of GAAP and Non-GAAP measures

Conference call

Michael Lohscheller, CEO, and Jean-Francois Mady, CFO, will host a conference call today, 12 May 2025, at 14:00 CET. To join the call, please follow the instructions available under Events on the Polestar Investor Relations website.

Notes

All financial figures are in millions of U.S. dollars (USD). Unless stated otherwise, the performance shown in this press release covers the three-month period ended 31 March 2025 (Q1 2025), compared to the three-month period ended 31 March 2024 (Q1 2024).

Calendar

Polestar expects to report its retail sales volumes for Q2 2025 on 10 July 2025.

Polestar Automotive Holding UK PLC

Polestar uses both generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP,” i.e., IFRS) and non-GAAP (i.e., non-IFRS) financial measures to evaluate operating performance and for other strategic and financial decision-making purposes. Polestar believes non-GAAP financial measures are helpful to investors as they provide useful perspective on underlying business trends and assist in period-on-period comparisons. These measures also improve the ability of management and investors to assess and compare the financial performance and position of Polestar with those of other companies.

These non-GAAP measures are presented for supplemental information purposes only and should not be considered a substitute for financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. The measures are not presented under a comprehensive set of accounting rules and, therefore, should only be read in conjunction with financial information reported under GAAP when assessing Polestar's operating performance.

The measures may not be the same as similarly titled measures used by other companies due to possible differences in calculation methods and items or events being adjusted. A reconciliation between non-GAAP financial measures and the most comparable GAAP performance measures is provided below.

The non-GAAP financial measures used in this press release are Adjusted EBITDA and Free Cash Flow:

Adjusted EBITDA

Adjusted EBITDA is calculated as net loss, adjusted to exclude listing expense, fair value change - Earn-out rights, fair value change - Class C Shares, finance expense, finance income, income tax benefit (expense), depreciation and amortization, impairment of property, plant and equipment, vehicles under operating leases, and intangibles assets, restructuring costs, disposals of investments, and unusual operating income and expenses that are considered rare or discrete events and are infrequent in nature. Depreciation and amortization includes (1) depreciation and amortization capitalized into the carrying value of inventory sold (i.e., part of inventory costs) and (2) depreciation and amortization expense. Restructuring costs include expenses associated with programs that were planned and controlled by management, and materially changed either (1) the scope of a business undertaken by the Group or (2) the manner in which business is conducted. Disposals of investments include disposals of, by sales or otherwise, (1) debt or equity financial instruments issued by another entity that are held as investments, (2) intangible assets, (3) property, plant, and equipment, and (4) groups of assets and liabilities representing disposal groups that were transferred together as part of individual transactions.

This measure is reviewed by management and management considers it to be a relevant measure for understanding the underlying operating results and trends of the core business prior to the impact of any adjusting items.

Prior to December 2024, Adjusted EBITDA was calculated as net loss, adjusted for listing expense, fair value change - Earn-out rights, fair value change - Class C Shares, interest income, interest expense, income tax benefit (expense), depreciation and amortization, and the impairment of property, plant and equipment, vehicles under operating leases, and intangibles assets.

The calculation was refined during December 2024 to change interest income and interest expense to finance income and finance expense, respectively, in order to exclude the effects of all items associated with financing activities of the Group instead of only interest related items. Additionally, exclusions for restructuring costs, disposals of investments, and unusual other operating income and expenses that are considered rare or discrete events and are infrequent in nature were added to the calculation to further refine management's view of earnings from core operations. The definition of depreciation and amortization was also changed to include depreciation and amortization capitalized into the carrying value of inventory sold (i.e., part of inventory costs) to account for the Group's change in the pattern of consumption of the future economic benefits embodied in internally developed and acquired intellectual property for the Polestar 2 from the straight-line method to units of production method in the fourth quarter of the year ended December 31, 2023. This method is also applicable to internally developed and acquired intellectual property for the Polestar 4, which entered production in the fourth quarter of the year ended December 31, 2023 and the Polestar 3, which entered production in the first quarter of the year ended December 31, 2024. The change to the definition of depreciation and amortization clarifies that the impact of all depreciation and amortization, irrespective of methodology and expense nature, is excluded from net loss for this measure. These changes provide a clearer view of earnings from core operations from management's perspective and improve comparability of earnings from core operations across reporting periods. Accordingly, Adjusted EBITDA for the comparative period is recast for the new calculation and presented alongside the historical calculation for comparability.

Statement regarding unaudited financial and operational results

The unaudited financial and operational information published in this press release is subject to potential adjustments. Potential adjustments to operational and consolidated financial information may be identified from work performed during Polestar’s year-end audit. This could result in differences from the unaudited operational and financial information published herein. For the avoidance of doubt, the unaudited operational and financial information published in this press release should not be considered a substitute for the financial information filed with the SEC in Polestar’s Annual Reports on Form 20-F.

About Polestar

Polestar (Nasdaq: PSNY) is the Swedish electric performance car brand with a focus on uncompromised design and innovation, and the ambition to accelerate the change towards a sustainable future. Headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, its cars are available in 27 markets globally across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.

Polestar has three models in its line-up: Polestar 2, Polestar 3, and Polestar 4. Planned models include the Polestar 5 four-door GT (to be introduced in 2025), the Polestar 6 roadster and the Polestar 7 compact SUV. With its vehicles currently manufactured on two continents, North America and Asia, Polestar plans to diversify its manufacturing footprint further, with production of Polestar 7 planned in Europe.

Polestar has an unwavering commitment to sustainability and has set an ambitious roadmap to reach its climate targets: halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 per-vehicle-sold and become climate-neutral across its value chain by 2040. Polestar’s comprehensive sustainability strategy covers the four areas of Climate, Transparency, Circularity, and Inclusion.

Forward-looking statements

Certain statements in this press release (“Press Release”) may be considered “forward-looking statements” as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or the future financial or operating performance of Polestar including the number of vehicle deliveries and gross margin. For example, projections of revenue, volumes, margins, cash flow break-even and other financial or operating metrics and statements regarding expectations of future needs for funding and plans related thereto are forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as “may”, “should”, “expect”, “intend”, “will”, “estimate”, “anticipate”, “believe”, “predict”, “potential”, “forecast”, “plan”, “seek”, “future”, “propose” or “continue”, or the negatives of these terms or variations of them or similar terminology. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward looking statements.

These forward-looking statements are based upon estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by Polestar and its management, as the case may be, are inherently uncertain. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to: (1) Polestar’s ability to enter into or maintain agreements or partnerships with its strategic partners, including Volvo Cars and Geely, original equipment manufacturers, vendors and technology providers; (2) Polestar’s ability to maintain relationships with its existing suppliers, source new suppliers for its critical components and enter into longer term supply contracts and complete building out its supply chain; (3) Polestar’s ability to raise additional funding; (4) Polestar’s ability to successfully execute cost-cutting activities and strategic efficiency initiatives; (5) Polestar’s estimates of expenses, profitability, gross margin, cash flow, and cash reserves; (6) Polestar’s ability to continue to meet stock exchange listing standards; (7) changes in domestic and foreign business, market, financial, political and legal conditions; (8) demand for Polestar’s vehicles or car sale volumes, revenue and margin development based on pricing, variant and market mix, cost reduction efficiencies, logistics and growing aftersales; (9) delays in the expected timelines for the development, design, manufacture, launch and financing of Polestar’s vehicles and Polestar’s reliance on a limited number of vehicle models to generate revenues; (10) increases in costs, disruption of supply or shortage of materials, in particular for lithium-ion cells or semiconductors; (11) risks related to product recalls, regulatory fines and/or an unexpectedly high volume of warranty claims; (12) Polestar’s reliance on its partners to manufacture vehicles at a high volume, some of which have limited experience in producing electric vehicles, and on the allocation of sufficient production capacity to Polestar by its partners in order for Polestar to be able to increase its vehicle production volumes; (13) the ability of Polestar to grow and manage growth profitably, maintain relationships with customers and suppliers and retain its management and key employees; (14) risks related to future market adoption of Polestar’s offerings; (15) risks related to Polestar’s current distribution model and the evolution of its distribution model in the future; (16) the effects of competition and the high barriers to entry in the automotive industry and the pace and depth of electric vehicle adoption generally on Polestar’s future business; (17) changes in regulatory requirements (including environmental laws and regulations and regulations related to connected vehicles), governmental incentives, tariffs and fuel and energy prices; (18) Polestar’s reliance on the development of vehicle charging networks to provide charging solutions for its vehicles and its strategic partners for servicing its vehicles and their integrated software; (19) Polestar’s ability to establish its brand and capture additional market share, and the risks associated with negative press or reputational harm, including from electric vehicle fires; (20) the outcome of any potential litigation, including litigation involving Polestar and Gores Guggenheim, Inc., government and regulatory proceedings, tax audits, investigations and inquiries; (21) Polestar’s ability to continuously and rapidly innovate, develop and market new products; (22) the impact of the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia and in Israel, the Gaza Strip and the Red Sea; and (23) the impact of the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia and in Israel, the Gaza Strip and the Red Sea; and (24) other risks and uncertainties set forth in the sections entitled “Risk Factors” and “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” in Polestar’s Form 20-F, and other documents filed, or to be filed, with the SEC by Polestar. There may be additional risks that Polestar presently does not know or that Polestar currently believes are immaterial that could also cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements.

Nothing in this Press Release should be regarded as a representation by any person that the forward-looking statements set forth herein will be achieved or that any of the contemplated results of such forward-looking statements will be achieved. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. Polestar assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future, except as may be required by law.

Polestar reports Q1 2025 revenue growth of 84% and significant gross margin improvement to positive