Exclusive interview with Polestar’s material designers

Komal Singh and Maria Uggla on their achievements, challenges in the design process, and how innovations in fashion inspired the new Polestar 4 model.

A conversation with Polestar’s material designers, Komal Singh, Color, CMF Design Expert, and Maria Uggla, Head of CMF Design, on greatest achievements, the challenges they face in the creative design process, and how the newest edition to the Polestar portfolio, the Polestar 4 model, was inspired by innovations that are happening in the fashion industry.

Polestar is the official Car Partner of Copenhagen Fashion Week.

Design processes

How does Polestar work with sustainable and innovative design?

At Polestar we have a high focus on delivering the most thought-out and well-designed cars, and sustainability is a central component in our design.

By designing everything from scratch and working through several design loops with our suppliers, we strive for materials to be as sustainable as possible and at the same time create a new expression that builds a distinct Polestar design language and brand.

Together with suppliers, our team of engineers and our sustainability experts we are constantly working on a new range of material solutions and innovations. Circularity is a big topic in all industries, and we discovered that to get closer to our aims we need to fully rethink the choice of materials and processes of how we create our products.

How have creative design processes shifted over the years both within Polestar and the last ten years altogether?

The idea of premium and luxury has changed, consumers nowadays realize that the desirable choice also can be the best choice in terms of environmental impact and impactful design. In order to achieve that, the new modern luxury EV to incorporate new innovative materials and reflects a well thought out approach through novel aesthetics. In today’s society, high-end products are not luxurious if they don't take sustainability into account.

One could say that the time-line of the design process has gone through a paradigm shift in the last years. Rather than materials being an afterthought where you add the visual effect to hint at sustainability at the final stage, the creative process of today starts with sustainability at the core. It starts with making informed material choices and letting new innovative techniques guide the end appearance. As designers we are concerned with not just the surface level but also the full parts and components and how they are constructed.

You can see the same shift happening in the fashion industry. We look at fashion as an important marker of where society and culture are headed.

What would you say have been some of the greatest achievements and successes for Polestar in regard to sustainable and creative design?

One of the greatest achievements is how we have designed sustainable, minimalistic, thought-out materials with a high quality and created the Scandinavian modern, and quiet luxury aesthetic that Polestar is renowned for. All these materials have been put into production of our Polestar 3 and Polestar 4.

Another achievement is how we at Polestar influence the wider industry by being at the forefront showing how great design, performance and sustainability can go hand-in-hand.  At Polestar, we believe that the role of good design is to create a desire for sustainability and innovations. This is what motivates us in our work.

We have been consistent in our design as well in our sustainability ambition and we have been able to take crucial steps in Polestar 3 and Polestar 4, proving that high quality can have a lower climate impact.

Sometimes you have to compromise in order to accommodate sustainability. What are some of the compromises in Polestar’s design work?

We do not compromise with our design, and we do not compromise when it comes to creating sustainable performance material. We believe that it’s possible to get the best of both worlds, and that’s why we only partner up with companies that share our same values and visions for the future of mobility. We see a tremendous opportunity in working with new materials to offer even better if not the same performance as more industry standard materials. We try to harness the inherent properties of these innovative materials rather than seeing them as a compromise. As an example, we worked with Bcomp to develop a flax fiber composite material suitable for car application. This material has proven to be inherently lighter than current fossil-based alternatives.

The automotive industry vs the fashion industry

Polestar has followed the fashion industry for many years. What would you say are the main challenges when it comes to sustainable design processes in the automotive industry vs the fashion industry? 

We are both searching for the next gen material, and we are both trying to understand and explore where the big impact lays, how to lower emissions in the production and how to become circular with the material we are using, and last but not least how to monitor the working conditions at our suppliers.

But a vehicle is a much more complex product, with hundreds of components where many different materials and processes come together. We have high requirements of all our materials, and they need to pass hard tests on durability and functionality.

Lead times are also much longer in the automotive industry, and we try to understand the big mega trends that influence society and avoid short term trends. And hopefully Polestar as a brand is a part of creating and contributing to trends for responsible product development.

Community and collaborations

For a truly equitable fashion industry that can remain relevant in the future, community is essential in facilitating authentic connections and collaborations, according to CPHFW. Is that also the case for the automotive industry? 

We believe that collaboration and connections are essential in moving forward towards a sustainable future. To overcome the challenges that lie in sustainable product development we must make use of all expertise and knowledge.

If yes, how does Polestar approach collabs and make them authentic?

Both the fashion- and automotive industry rely on a complex network of suppliers, where it’s important to ensure a responsible and transparent supply chain. We are very selective when it comes to collaborations and have very high demands on our suppliers to promote and preserve Polestar’s values and sustainability goals. We push them to develop sustainable practices, and sometimes they go back, take their time and return with better solutions.

We have partnered up with Circulor and GeeTrace to introduce a solution for mineral tracing, so that we can vouch for the materials we work with. This allows us to gain greater insight into our supply chains and track risk materials that may have a negative environmental or social impact.

We are also very proud of the work we are doing with the Swedish School of Textiles that is a part of the University of Borås, located in the southwestern Sweden. The Textile Fashion Center is a textile hub where education, companies, and incubators meet from all over the world to develop the textile and fashion field. The collaboration lets us test ideas in an agile way and create custom-made materials from scratch which has enabled us to look forward and beyond what had already been done. It is also one of the many reasons the interior in Polestar 4 was inspired by innovations that are happening in the fashion industry.

According to Polestar, a more sustainable future relies on collaborations across industries. How can an EV brand learn from a fashion industry that for years has had fairly high CO2 emissions?

Since new innovations go into production a lot faster in the fashion industry we can look to fashion for a lot of inspiration for sustainable innovations and new material technologies. The fashion industry marks key shifts in global mindsets and people’s behaviors, for us designers it works as a window to better understand the needs of consumers. Our aim is to find a new more modern take on luxury, and we use high-end fashion as a source of inspiration.

Polestar 4

Is Polestar 4 targeted more towards the fashion focused consumer than the regular consumer?

All of our Polestar cars are born out of Scandinavian innovation and our design philosophy is rooted in pure minimalistic and thought-out designs. Polestar 4 is targeted towards the consumer that buys into our philosophy and brand values, and is climate conscious and appreciates good design.

Polestar 4 is said to be the most sustainable car in Polestar’s lineup so far. How did you achieve this?

Indeed, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for the Polestar 4, published in late 2023, revealed that it had the lowest carbon footprint of all Polestar cars at launch to date. For Polestar 4 Standard range Single motor, the cradle to gate carbon footprint, which encompasses all greenhouse gas emissions from material extraction to when the car leaves the factory gate, including logistics to and from Geely Holdings’ SEA factory in Hangzhou Bay, China, equals 19.4 tCO2e. This is a result of a usage of I-REC hydro power certified green electricity combined with photovoltaic electricity in the manufacturing , and high use of low-carbon aluminum from smelters using hydropower electricity. Moreover, data regarding the share of recycled aluminum has been included in the assessment for the first time. The comparison of all our cars’ carbon footprint can be found in the Polestar Sustainability Report 2023.