On a frozen lake near the small town of Jokkmokk in northern Sweden, Polestar chief executive Michael Lohscheller hops behind the wheel of one of the company’s high-performance electric vehicles. The normally cautious German, who took the reins of the Swedish company late last year after a dramatic sharemarket slump, is about to navigate Polestar’s Arctic Circuit test track for the first time.

“I’m excited and nervous at the same time, if you want an honest answer,” he tells me as we buckle in. “I am not normally a fast driver.”