Polestar Australia has refused to rejoin Australia’s leading automotive industry body, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), this time citing its lack of support for electric vehicles (EVs).
Polestar and fellow electric car brand Tesla decided to withdraw from the FCAI in early 2024 to protest against the body’s criticism of Australia’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES), which has now been introduced to reduce emissions from new vehicles.
The FCAI has argued that the NVES “could lead to a lower than expected uptake of low-emission technologies” and therefore “could have the opposite effect of increasing emissions rather than achieving the policy target… while making new cars more expensive”.
Polestar Australia managing director Scott Maynard says the FCAI would need to change its tone on the Australian government’s emissions legislation and low-emission vehicles in general before the Chinese electric vehicle brand would consider rejoining.
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“We would need to see that the FCAI is truly representative of the entire industry, especially the industry that is growing so quickly and starting to eat up market share,” he told the media during the launch of the slightly updated Polestar 2.
“While we continue to see the FCAI speak out against programs such as the new vehicle efficiency program and continue to lobby the government to change something that was introduced for the right reasons and is only just bringing us into line with other markets around the world, we cannot claim that the FCAI would speak for our brand.”
Polestar claims to be one of the more advanced brands in electrical engineering. The Geely-owned company offers complete transparency on the CO2 emissions of all its models, including during manufacture and ownership.
Australia’s NVES, meanwhile, requires car brands to meet stricter fleet emissions targets every year until 2029. If they fail to do so, they face financial penalties, and organizations such as the FCAI have argued that these costs are passed on to consumers.
The FCAI also said the emissions reduction scheme “could encourage consumers to hold on to older vehicles for longer” and “limit the Australian consumer’s ability to continue to access the vehicle models and powertrains they want at affordable prices”.
But Mr Maynard says “there are so many long-established brands still trying to fight this” and that many of the FCAI’s statements and associated media coverage are “obvious scaremongering around extraordinary price increases that could cost Australian motorists billions of dollars”.
“I can understand why they feel the need to do that – that’s who pays them. These legacy brands contribute a lot to FCAI so they have to represent them, but they don’t represent us. So that won’t work.”
Mr Maynard believes the Australian government’s relatively lax efforts to reduce emissions from new vehicles have so far not given established car brands a strong incentive to switch fully to electric vehicles, but have instead allowed them to rely on conventional, high-emitting vehicles to boost sales.
“Many of these (legacy) brands have a global vehicle catalog that would allow them to (reduce emissions),” he said.
“It’s just that Australia has been a convenient market to sell old technology and provide enough volume so they don’t feel compelled to introduce or develop new technology. So you can understand why that’s pretty upsetting to them at this point and they have to rail against it,” he said.
While Polestar has seen a significant increase in sales both locally and globally in 2025, the company is still a niche player both in Australia and globally. With 2,373 units delivered to local customers last year, it was well below Tesla’s 28,856 sales.
Still, Mr. Maynard predicts that FCAI and its member brands will eventually need to fully transition to battery-electric powertrains as demand for electric vehicles continues to grow in the coming years.
“It is to some extent inevitable that electric vehicle adoption will continue to evolve and grow and that the proportion of electric vehicles sold in Australia will continue to increase. Therefore, I am sure that the FCAI, which represents its brands and the wider industry, will have to change its position on this at some point,” he said.
“As the industry evolves, they need to evolve with it, but they seem to be a step back at the moment, and certainly far behind us.”
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