Polestar Cuts Emissions Per Car Sold by 31% Since 2020

Image credit: Polestar

Polestar has just dropped its 2025 Sustainability Report, and the headline number is a 31% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions per car sold since 2020. The Swedish electric brand pulled that off while scaling annual retail sales past 60,000 cars and pushing into 28 global markets.

Europe still does the heavy lifting for the brand at over 75% of sales. Australia is a smaller but active market, with the Polestar 4, Polestar 2, Polestar 3 and the new Polestar 5 all on local price lists.

Where the 31% Cut Actually Comes From

Three things are doing the work, according to the report. First, more renewable energy across battery cell production and final vehicle assembly. Second, wider adoption of low-carbon materials in the build process. Third, growing sales volumes of the Polestar 4, which the brand calls its lowest-carbon car to date.

Cleaner European electricity grids have also dragged use-phase emissions down, since most charging happens in the brand's biggest market. That's the part of an EV's footprint that drops the fastest as the grid decarbonises, and it's why a Polestar 4 charged in 2026 looks better on paper than the same car charged in 2020.

Polestar CEO Michael Lohscheller wasn't shy about the framing: “If you are not reducing emissions while growing, you are choosing not to.”

Polestar 0: Net-Zero Car Target Pushed to 2035

The big sustainability play, the Polestar 0 project, is the brand's attempt to build a fully net-zero car without buying any offsets. That target has now been pushed back from 2030 to 2035, which Polestar is honest about: removing every gram of carbon from a car's life cycle is harder than it sounded five years ago.

The work is centred at Mission 0 House in Gothenburg, established in 2024 and funded with close to SEK 100 million over five years. The current consortium spans five Swedish universities and six industry partners, including SSAB on steel and TMG Automotive on textiles.

Active projects include a large-scale pilot for ultra-low-emission steel, new battery material research, bio-based textile alternatives, and technologies that convert CO2 into usable materials. Polestar also says it remains on track for its broader goal of becoming a climate-neutral company by 2040.

What This Means for Australian Buyers

From a local-buyer perspective, the gap between what an EV emits over its life and what a comparable petrol car emits keeps widening. The Polestar 4 Long Range Single Motor in particular is now the cleanest car in Polestar's lineup, and the brand has a usable case for owners who want to compare an EV against a hybrid on more than just running costs. We dig into the same trade-off on price and energy in our EV vs hybrid running costs analysis.

The Polestar 0 timeline shift is the more interesting story long term. A genuine net-zero car (steel, glass, textiles, battery cells, the lot, with zero offsets) is the bar nobody else has cleared yet. Even pushed to 2035, it's still the most ambitious public target in the industry. If you're weighing your EV options today, our best electric cars Australia 2026 roundup keeps the comparison practical.

Our Take

Sustainability reports usually go straight to the recycling bin, but the headline number here is real. 31% less CO2 per car while almost tripling sales volumes is a very different result to most carmakers, who have either flatlined or gone backwards on per-unit emissions while scaling EV production.

The Polestar 0 delay is sensible rather than embarrassing. The bigger question is whether the rest of the industry can match the per-car cuts Polestar is now banking, or whether 2026 ends up being the year the supposed environmental case for European EVs stops being a marketing line and starts being a measurable gap.

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