Polestar’s president, Thomas Ingenlath, has wanted to give some data to see the reality of emissions that never come from the vehicle. That depends both on the production process itself and on the vehicle’s power during its useful life.
According to Mr. Ingenlath, an electric car has a lower environmental impact than a model with a combustion engine. But he also warns that this decision alone will not be enough. It will also be necessary to bet on renewable energy.
The head of the Swedish brand has indicated that manufacturing the Polestar 2 involves emitting up to 24 tons of CO2e (CO2 equivalents). A figure that compares with the 14 tons of CO2e that are emitted to make a gasoline XC40. An indicating difference can be attributed mainly to the electric’s battery output.
During a useful life of 124,000 miles, the XC40 (petrol version with 163 g / km of CO2) emits another 41 tons of CO2, which brings its figures to 55 tons of CO2, in addition to the rest of the particles that come out of an exhaust pipe. They are not usually taken into account in these studies despite their enormous importance.
For the estimation, Polestar has designed two scenarios. One where the electric car will be powered mainly with renewable energy for recharging. Here the Polestar 2 will need 31,000 miles to offset the higher emissions from its production.
Of course, the figures will even depend on where the factory in question is located, and it will not be the same in Germany, Sweden, or Spain, where in the first six months of the year the production with renewables has reached 46%. A figure to which we can add other sources without direct emissions such as nuclear, which would take the figures beyond 63% of production without CO2 emissions.
A number that is also growing significantly, which will mean that today’s calculations will not be the same as in one or two months, and of course, they will have nothing to do with those in a few years.
It should also be added that from Polestar, like many other similar studies, they forget to add the emissions from the production of the fuels of the diesel and gasoline models. According to the report of the Technical University of Eindhoven, a detail with great importance is supposed to add 24% of CO2 in the case of diesel engines and 30% of gasoline.
With these data, the XC40 gasoline would have emissions of 68 tons of CO2 throughout its useful life, while the production of electricity would be 24 tons, plus the electrical network’s consumption. Figures for the electric car should be lower each year thanks to the rapid expansion of renewables throughout the planet.