Have you been "greenwashed" into a vegan EV? Polestar says there is no such thing

Electric vehicle brand Polestar says anybody who has purchased a "vegan" electric vehicle has fallen victim to "greenwashing", insisting there is no way to manufacturer a vehicle without the use of animal products.

That's according the brand's head of sustainability, Fredrika Klarén, who told CarsGuide that, while leather-free seat materials are gaining in popularity, the idea of a vegan vehicle is, at this point, impossible.

"For me, it's a greenwash, because you cannot say that a car is vegan. We have animal products all over the place. We have grease, we have animal content in synthetics, and in plastics," she says.

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"So saying that a car can be vegan is a lie to consumers.

"Yes, you can have a vegan upholstery alternative, like we have, we want to ensure that, as a vegan, you can have an alternative to move away from leather. But we will never make a claim that we have provided you with a completely vegan car."

Many brands, including Tesla, bill their vehicles as being at least partly vegan, replacing the leathers in the steering wheel, seats and cabin materials with synthetics. Even PETA applauded Tesla for its move to vegan materials with the Model 3, saying that "by ditching leather, Tesla is both staying true to its focus on sustainability and sparing cows the cruelty inherent in the leather industry."

But, says Polestar, there is actually no such thing as a vegan vehicle.

While the brand does offer a non-leather seat material, Polestar says it is largely sticking with leather for the time being, owing in part to the way the brand sources its hides, and to its insistence that many existing vegan seat materials could be considerably worse for the environment than responsibly-sourced leather.

"The big challenge with vegan leathers is that they are reliant on PVC. And PVC is the worst of the worst. It's so toxic," Ms Klarén says.

"And we must remember that we have a lot of environmental issues. Not only climate change, but also  pollution that is really worrying and that is also urgent.

"We need to use PVC materials, but it's when we steer towards only one type of material, when we only go for vegan, we are so reliant on PVC.

"Vegan leather, the way it is today, is not sustainable."

For the record, Polestar's leather is sourced as a by-product of other farming industries, where the hide is one per-cent the value of the cow - meaning the brand isn't funding new cattle projects.

The brand says it's investigating a sustainable replacement, but hasn't found it yet. 

"If you just replace it with synthetics, you are moving the negative impact to another area. And it can be even worse," Ms Klarén says.

"What we chose was to stick with leather because we see that we can't replace it in a sustainable way."