“We aren’t saying our methodology is perfect, we just want the information to be open and shared so consumers can make conscious decisions,” Klaren said, adding that Polestar believes the transparency will help the industry’s dented reputation when it comes to emissions.
“There is a lack of trust due to old, non-transparent ways, for instance Dieselgate,” she said, referring to the Volkswagen Group’s diesel-emissions cheating scandal that was made public five years ago this month.
VW has paid more than 30 billion euros in fines, settlements, recalls and legal costs for equipping 11 million vehicles worldwide with manipulated engine management software to cheat diesel pollution tests.
This week Daimler said it would pay $2.2 billion to resolve a U.S. government diesel-emissions cheating investigation and claims from 250,000 U.S. vehicle owners.
Klaren said that Polestar aims to gets its carbon footprint down to zero by 2040 or earlier without committing to a target. “We are uncompromising in being progressive,” she said, “so expect us to have a really ambitious target compared to other automakers.”
Volvo Cars aims to be climate neutral by 2040. To get there it will need to slash its life cycle carbon footprint by 40 percent to 31.8 tons of CO2 per car by 2025 from 53 tons in 2018.