Polestar blasts Toyota’s EV strategy, saying “we cannot continue using fossil fuels”
Polestar and Toyota are at two opposite ends of the EV spectrum. The former is building some of the world’s most sustainable electric vehicles, while the latter has been openly opposed to going all-electric. At a recent media briefing, Polestar’s head of sustainability, Fredricka Klaren, took aim at Toyota and its EV strategy (or lack thereof), claiming anything but a fully electric future will fail to address climate change.
“It’s not possible. We cannot continue using fossil fuels,” Klaren responded when asked questions about Toyota’s stance that EVs are not the only way to reduce emissions.
Toyota has consistently stood by its stance, even lobbying against going all in on pure electric vehicles. Instead, it insists on investing in hybrid technology and fuel cells alongside its ICE vehicles.
Despite nearly every other automaker making plans to go fully electric, Toyota is standing by its hybrid strategy. Toyota has one fully electric vehicle, the bZ4X, with 1,220 US sales last year.
Despite the improved electric range on Toyota’s “crown jewel” fifth generation Prius, the hybrid model is quickly becoming the best CD player in a world moving toward iPhones.
Toyota generated less than 1% of total US sales from zero-emission vehicles (not hybrids) and has the least developed supply chain for reducing carbon emissions. As a result, Toyota ranks among the 2022s world’s most obstructive companies on climate policy.
Polestar, on the other hand, aims to build a completely climate-neutral EV with the Polestar 0 project. The EV maker delivered over 50,000 electric vehicles in 2022, solidifying its position as an emerging EV contender. Polestar is calling on the industry to become more transparent about sustainability, and they are not afraid to call out those not assisting in the cause.
At a media briefing this week in Sydney, Klaren said automakers focusing on anything but EVs are taking the wrong approach, adding there’s no place for mass-produced non-EV models after 2030.
Klaren says Polestar is basing its assessments on science, saying:
From our standpoint, our climate strategy is based on the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). It’s a top-down approach. We’ve said that we need to be climate neutral by 2040 as a company and we need to halve emissions by 2030, and that’s not what we can do – that is what the climate scientists are telling us we need to do as companies.
She adds that anyone who claims they will fix it in 2040 or 2050 is not listening because we will have already missed our goal.
We only have seven years left until we hit 1.5 degrees global warming. That’s a fact if we continue on the route we’re heading into. So, anything after 2030, we’re not interested.
In particular, Klaren directed her attention toward Toyota and hybrid technology, saying it alone won’t be good enough.
To me, you’re still putting gasoline in the car, so don’t focus on that technology at all. If you keep focussing [and] having that in your business plan, you’re not going to level up in the way you need to do in terms of this new technology.
Polestar is calling on auto industry leaders to do their part to combat climate change, including setting goals and being transparent about them.
All companies need to have that strategy to enable us to combat climate change in time. So that’s our predicament here. We know this. We know there is no place for non-EVs on a large scale after 2030 in that scenario. But OEMs are locked into their business plans. They plan for a transition and I understand that. But the thing is that the timeline is wrong and it’s not in line with scientists, so what we need to do is tear up those business plans and make new ones.
Electrek’s Take
Polestar is on to something here. Global CO2 emissions hit a new record high in 2022, and if we continue trending down this path, it could mean more frequent and severe weather like we saw this past year. Floods, droughts, and extreme temperatures not only wreak havoc on communities but also the food supply.
Atmospheric CO2 levels are around 420 ppm, according to the latest measurement from NOAA’s Mauna Loa Baseline Observatory.
For us to maintain a 300 to 350 ppm average atmospheric level as it has been over the past several decades, something needs to change. The transportation sector is one of, if not the largest, global greenhouse gas contributors.
Polestar is one of the EV makers looking to accelerate the transition to a sustainable future, pushing for transparency across the industry, while Toyota has, for the most part, been dragging its feet.
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National Grid Renewables has broken ground on its 100 MW Apple River Solar Project in Polk County, Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin solar farm, which will use US-made First Solar Series 6 Plus bifacial modules, will be constructed by The Boldt Company, creating 150 construction and service jobs. Apple River Solar will generate over $36 million in direct economic benefits over its first 20 years.
Once it comes online in late 2025, Apple River Solar will supply clean energy to Xcel Energy, which serves customers throughout the Upper Midwest. According to National Grid Renewables, the solar farm will generate enough energy to power around 26,000 homes annually. It will also offset about 129,900 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year – equivalent to taking 30,900 cars off the road.
“We are excited to see this project begin as it underscores our dedication to delivering clean, reliable and affordable energy to our customers,” said Karl Hoesly, President, Xcel Energy-Wisconsin and Michigan. “This project is an important step in those goals while bringing significant economic benefits to Polk County and the local townships.”
Electrek reported in February that Xcel Energy, Minnesota’s largest utility, expects to cut more than 80% – and possibly up to 88% – of its emissions by 2030, putting it on track to hit Minnesota’s goal of net zero by 2040. It also says it’s on track to achieve its clean energy goals for all the Upper Midwest states it serves – Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Michigan.
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Tesla has announced that it will finally deliver 500 kW charging as it is about to install its long-awaited V4 Supercharger cabinets.
The rollout of Supercharger V4 has been a strange one, to say the least.
Tesla has been deploying the new charging stations for two years and calling them “Supercharger V4”, but it has only been deploying the charging stalls.
Supercharger stations are made of two main parts: the stalls, which are where the charging cable is located, and the cabinets, which are generally located further back and include all the power electronics.
For all these new “Supercharger V4”, Tesla was actually using Supercharger V3 cabinets. This has been limiting the power output of the charging stations to 250 kW – although
Today, Tesla officially announced its “V4 Cabinet”, which the automaker claims will enable of “delivering up to 500kW for cars and 1.2MW for Semi.”
Here are the main features of the V4 Cabinet as per Tesla:
- Faster charging: Supports 400V-1000V vehicle architectures, including 30% faster charging for Cybertruck. S3XY vehicles enjoy 250kW charge rates they already experience on V3 Cabinet — charging up to 200 miles in 15 minutes.
- Faster deployments: V4 Cabinet powers 8 posts, 2X the stalls per cabinet. Lower footprint and complexity = more sites coming online faster.
- Next-generation hardware: Cutting-edge power electronics designed to be the most reliable on the planet, with 3X power density enabling higher throughput with lower costs.
Tesla reports that its first sites with the new V4 Cabinets are going into permitting now. The company expects its first sites to open next year.
We recently reported about Tesla’s new Oasis Supercharger project, which includes larger solar arrays and battery packs to operate the charging station mostly off-grid.
Early in the deployment of the Supercharger network, Tesla promised to add solar arrays and batteries to all Supercharger stations, and Musk even said that most stations would be able to operate off-grid.
While Tesla did add solar and batteries to a few stations, the vast majority of them don’t have their own power system or have only minimal solar canopies.
Back in 2016, I asked Musk about this, and he said that it would now happen as Tesla had the “pieces now in place” with Supercharger V3, Powerpack V2, and SolarCity:
It took about 8 years, but it sounds like the pieces are now getting actually in place with Supercharger V4, Megapacks, and this new Oasis project.
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Hyundai has a new secret weapon it’s about ready to unleash. To revamp the brand in China and counter BYD’s surge, Hyundai is launching a new AI-powered EV next year. The new model will be Hyundai’s first dedicated electric car for the world’s largest EV market.
With the help of Haomo, a Chinese autonomous startup, Hyundai will launch its first EV equipped with generative AI. It will also be its first model designed specifically for China.
A Hyundai Motor official said (via The Korea Herald) the company is “working to load the software” onto the new EV model, “which will be released in the Chinese market next year.” The spokesperson added, “The level of autonomous driving is somewhere between 2 and 2.5.”
In comparison, Tesla’s Autopilot is considered a level 2 advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) on the SAE scale (0 to 5), meaning it offers limited hands-free features.
With Autopilot, you still have to keep your eyes on the road and hands on the steering wheel, or the system will notify you and eventually disengage.
Haomo’s system, DriveGPT, unveiled last spring, takes inspiration from the OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT.
The system can continuously update in real-time to optimize decision-making by absorbing traffic data patterns. According to Haomo, DriveGPT is used in around 20 models as it looks to play a bigger role in China.
Hyundai hopes new AI-powered EV boosts sales in China
Electric vehicle sales continue surging in China. According to Rho Motion, China set another EV sales record last month with 1.2 million units sold, up 50% from October 2023.
Over 8.4 million EVs were sold in China in the first ten months of 2024, a notable 38% increase from last year.
BYD continues to dominate its home market. According to Autovista24, BYD accounted for 32.9% of all PHEV and EV (NEV) sales in China through September, with over half of the top 20 best-selling EV models.
Tesla was second with a 6.5% share of the market, but keep in mind these numbers only include plug-in models (PHEV).
Like most foreign automakers, Hyundai is struggling to keep up with the influx of low-cost electric models in China. Beijing Hyundai’s sales have been slipping since 2017. Through September, Korean automaker’s share of the Chinese market fell to just 1.2%.
Last month, Hyundai opened its first overseas digital R&D center in China to help kick off its return to the region.
According to local reports, Hyundai is partnering with other local tech companies like Thundersoft, a smart cockpit provider, and others in China to power up its next-gen EVs
With its first AI-powered EV launching next year, Hyundai hopes to turn things around in the region quickly. The new model will be one of five to launch in China through 2026.
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