Swedish electric carmaker Polestar says it has slashed its CO2-equivalent emissions by 8% per car over the past year, thanks mostly to the use of greener metals and 100 per cent renewable power at its major factory and suppliers.
Polestar recorded sales of 51,491 vehicles in 2022, an 80% increase compared to the 27,677 it sold in 2021. According to its third Annual Sustainability Report released this week, Polestar was able to reduce its relative CO2-equivalent emissions by around 8% to 37.1 tonnes per sold car, taking its reductions over the last two years to 13 per cent.
“As a pure EV-maker, we cannot pat ourselves on the back, confident we’ve done our bit. We are just getting started, and not having a legacy technology to phase out just means we can focus on what is in our power to change – supply chain decarbonisation,” CEO Thomas Ingenlath said.
“A fast transition to electrification is crucial, it is not enough. For EVs to reach their full potential, we need global access to renewable energy on the grids to enable green charging.”
One of the reasons CO2 emissions fell again in the last year, was due mainly because the company is “selling cars in markets with a fairly good grid mix,” reducing emissions during the use phase.
Currently, Polestar’s sales are generally to countries where the grid electricity mix has a relatively high level of renewable energy sources. Polestar is nevertheless looking ahead to when its sales increase in markets like the US and China it will need to work to influence what electricity its customers use to charge their vehicles.
However, sustainability upgrades to the Polestar also played a factor, as well as the fact that its main manufacturing plant in Taizhou, China is using only renewable electricity. This has resulted in a reduction of 0.5 tonnes CO2-e per car.
Other reductions were achieved through a switch of aluminium supplier for the wheels and battery trays used in the Polestar 2. The new supplier uses hydroelectricity to power its smelting operations, which resulted in a 1.2 tonne reduction of emissions per car.
The 19 inch (48.3 cm) rims now also use aluminium produced with renewable energy. This reduces the carbon footprint by 0.5 tonnes CO2e per car.
Polestar also said a higher proportion of sales of single motor variants of its Polestar 2 also resulted in less energy use.
Joshua S. Hill is a Melbourne-based journalist who has been writing about climate change, clean technology, and electric vehicles for over 15 years. He has been reporting on electric vehicles and clean technologies for Renew Economy and The Driven since 2012. His preferred mode of transport is his feet.