Polestar's new boss comes out swinging at Australia's peak motoring body in a push for better policy on electric cars: 'The FCAI is working really hard to represent the brands that are paying it'

It’s been a couple of months since Scott Maynard took the reins at Polestar Australia, filling the shoes left empty by Samantha Johnson.

Aside from a brand set for a busy launch schedule, Maynard has also inherited a decision made before his arrival that not only got the automotive industry talking, but also made headlines: Polestar cancelled its membership to the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI).

The decision followed the same move by Tesla, both brands leaving the automotive industry representative body due to believing the group was lobbying the government to ease the pressure on manufacturers to electrify their product offerings.

“The brand cannot in good faith continue to allow its membership fees to fund a campaign designed to deliberately slow the car industry’s contribution to Australia’s emissions reduction potential,” Johnson wrote in a letter to the CEO of the FCAI, Tony Weber.

CarsGuide recently spoke to Scott Maynard to see what the present and the near future looks like for the Swedish brand.

When asked whether leaving the FCAI has impacted Polestar Australia's ability to have an influence on policy, Maynard said: “No, I don't think so at all.”

“The government's been pretty inclusive in trying to strike up conversation with as many players in this as possible.

“And because of Polestar’s reputation earned by any number of different ways, Polestar now finds itself in a position where it can be relating quite directly to government and the different government bodies that are talking about the shaping of policy and NVES.”

“I don't think it's diminished Polestar’s ability to influence at all. If anything, it's brought about some headlines. It's probably allowed it to have independent conversations.”

Breaking out from the group, which Polestar believes its philosophy is at odds with, has meant the brand’s communications with government is unfiltered and Maynard sees this as a win.

“I think it's working better for us than it would have been if we just still sat under the umbrella of the FCAI, and it would have been almost more difficult to have stepped out from behind that chamber and spoken about some of the things that we feel quite strongly about, like NVES.”

The NVES, or New Vehicle Efficiency Standard, is a policy that in theory sets out to encourage car makers to sell low-emission cars with a credit system that rewards efficient cars and penalises the sale of cars that pollute.

It’s a tricky system for some of Australia’s biggest brands to work around, for example Toyota has plenty of hybrids but only one electric car, and one of its biggest volume products is a diesel ute - the HiLux.

Ford and Mazda are both also relatively short on cars that can massively improve their credit scores once the NVES kicks in and begins to become stricter.

Maynard said the FCAI worked to weaken the standards set out in the NVES, which is detrimental to the need to reduce transport emissions. This is something his predecessor laid out in the letter to Tony Weber earlier this year.

“The power of the FCAI is not really working the way we would have ideally like to see it work,” Maynard told CarsGuide.

“The FCAI is working really hard to represent the brands that are paying it, essentially, and so in more and more instances is not speaking for us, which is why we needed to leave.”

Rather than being a relatively small fish in the big FCAI pond, Maynard said Polestar is now able to directly discuss its hopes with policymakers.

“Some of the key things that we’d really like to see is with the disparity in incentives being carved up and done state by state has been really messy, unwieldy," he said.

“So you can buy an electric vehicle in four different states and get completely different deals in every one of them, and in every one of those no one really knows in most instances just when the incentive money is going to run out.

“So that's been really difficult.”

Maynard said more consistent policies that are accessible and easy to understand for buyers are key to Australia catching up on electric car uptake.

“It would be great to see a national policy on the electrification of transport, because the government's been quite outspoken in saying it wants electrification. 

“So to come up with some national policies that could be implemented across Australia, I think would be far better than what we've got now. That would be a big plus.”

While the Polestar boss is keen to see policy reflect the government’s wishes, he also acknowledges the need for more physical infrastructure to accommodate an eventual increase in the number of EVs getting around.

“The continued development in infrastructure, and there's some big promises being made and some commitments to that, but to actually see the implementation of that - anything that will make an electric vehicle easier to live with," said Maynard.

“And I mean, it's great to see charge points even here [in rural Tasmania], but the government's commitment to put them no more than 170 kilometres from another and make them more reliable and give them more capacity, I think, is really essential. So working hard on that and with them.

“And with NVES, it's not necessarily about fining and punishing, but rather making sure that an electric vehicle is a good choice for consumers, that it makes sense for them.”

The closing line of former Polestar boss Samantha Johnson’s letter to the FCAI leaves opportunity for Maynard to make his own decision on the matter, should the nature of the industry body change: “When the FCAI commits to representing all voices in the automotive industry, fairly, Polestar will consider returning as a full member.”

It seems, though, that Polestar is happy to be out on its own for now.