In April 2021, Polestar, the progressive Swedish EV-maker, announced the Polestar 0 project - a moonshot goal to create a truly climate-neutral car by 2030 without offsetting. The ambitious challenge looks to remove emissions throughout the complete supply chain and across production and logistics.
Making a product as complicated as a climate-neutral car is an unprecedented challenge, and it was clear from the outset that a dedicated internal project team would be required. Polestar has therefore tasked its former Head of Research and Development, engineer and automotive veteran of thirty years, Hans Pehrson, with the project - placing it at the heart of Polestar's R&D efforts.
Polestar is now preparing to launch a call for action among suppliers, entrepreneurs, innovators, investors, universities, researchers, authorities, and consumers at large to collaborate on the important and ambitious target.
The project has been split into three stages, building up to the 2030 target. The first stage will address research and primarily target the CO2e contributors furthest from technological solutions today. The task force is now focusing on establishing collaborations to jointly find technical sources of CO2e in the entire supply chain, down to the smallest components - from material extraction (or recycled sources) to vehicle handover. Every step needs to be evaluated based on whether solutions are readily available or research is needed.
"Achieving climate neutrality is an absolute must for our future for all consumer products. Cars are complex, they consist of tens of thousands of components, and rely on intricate layering of suppliers and sub-manufacturers. Making a car climate-neutral is therefore not only an extremely important challenge but an extremely difficult one. Understanding and accepting the challenge is the first step; getting all the way there will require that we collaborate in ways that have never existed before. This is not a solo mission," says Hans Pehrson.
Initial conversations have begun with existing and future suppliers, whilst Polestar continues to search for research and collaboration partners.
