We improve some foundational connectivity results and the relative Hurewicz theorem
in motivic homotopy theory, study functorial central series in motivic local group
theory, establish the existence of functorial Moore–Postnikov factorizations for
nilpotent morphisms of motivic spaces under a mild technical hypothesis and
establish an analog of the Whitehead theorem for nilpotent motivic spaces. As
an application, we deduce a surprising unstable motivic periodicity result.