8:19 am, April 20, 2021
The EV revolution faces losing its focus on helping to cut climate change, the boss of Polestar has warned.
Thomas Ingenlath told Shanghai Motor Show attendees there had been numerous new companies riding the wave of rising EV popularity.
As a result, the industry could become ‘a plaything for speculators’ and he urged firms to ‘get their priorities straight by putting climate change before pushing for a sky-high market valuation’.
Ingenlath added: ‘What is at stake here is not how much financiers think a company is worth, but the chance to revolutionise the auto industry, turn it electric and at the same time make a huge contribution to protecting the climate.
‘Put against these important themes, a market valuation is a very insubstantial and meaningless marker of success.
‘The pathway to a cleaner planet passes through our design studios, our research departments, our factories, our supply chains and our boardrooms.
‘We in the auto industry need to stay focused on what we are doing and why.
Polestar’s stand at the 2021 Shanghai Motor Show
‘The more speculative the EV sector becomes, the deeper our responsibility is to make sure that we stay grounded in the actual business of making the cars that will revolutionise the industry.’
And although he welcomed growing investor interest in EVs, Ingenlath warned that it was easy to focus on ‘paper value rather than industrial reality’.
Polestar – a Volvo spin-off that builds electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles based on its sibling’s platforms – last week announced a $550m (circa £393m) long-term investment package. It’s the first external investment it has received.
Sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles will be banned in the UK from 2030.
