China's electric vehicle (EV) market, the largest in the world, still holds "big potential" for EV carmakers as it is expected to continue an upward growth path for the segment despite a slowdown in the auto industry since 2018, said the head of Polestar, the luxury EV startup founded by Volvo Cars and its parent company Chinese automaker Geely.

Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath said the world trajectory is undoubtedly moving away from internal combustion engines (ICE) and the EV market would expand regardless of whether other segments of the automotive industry was growing or not.

"We definitely have to find a way … to transfer the big majority of ICE cars that are on the roads today, and really bring them onto the electro mobility, to the green mobility track.

"That is, for us as an EV brand, a big potential, regardless whether the automotive market as a whole is growing or not," Ingenlath told CGTN in an interview on the sidelines of the 2020 Beijing auto show.

Ingenlath said that car manufacturers that still retain a big majority of their product line up with combustion engines would face challenging times.

"For a traditional OEM having 80, 90 percent of your product portfolio, still with an internal combustion engine, definitely challenging. Times of just incredible growth have come to a hold," he said, adding that two digit annual growth rates may be hard to come by.

Ingenlath said that there would be long-term increase in demand from global consumers towards vehicles that are truly sustainable, and the trend would not change any other way.

"I think by now everybody recognizes if you want to play in the game in the future, you have to do that (sustainability) step. The consumer will not accept, the lawmakers will not accept it," he said.

Reducing carbon footprint

However, Ingenlath warned that the reality of EVs is that they are not entirely "clean."

"We truly believe that. The responsible consumer needs to understand the complexity of that product and not be left in the naive thought that I bought an electric car … and wow bang, I did it for my sustainable contribution."

Ingenlath said that the consumer needs to realize that charging the EV car with renewable energy is a major part in making vehicles contributes to a lower CO2 footprint.

He admitted that the auto industry itself should acknowledge that the manufacturing of cars is not yet CO2 free.

"The electric car comes with a burden … when it leaves the factor. We have to go into the production process, the materials that we use, and really reduce the CO2 footprint of the car that leaves the factory."

"We made enough mistakes in the car industry in the past when doing certain tricks to emissions numbers and stuff. It was certainly a way to lose the confidence and trust of the consumer," he added.

"I don't think that you will be profitable at all in the coming years if you do not work and respect that, sustainability is a factor. You will not be competitive."

Ingenlath said that while the coronavirus pandemic was a major crisis, it was a "small problem" compared to the impending climate crisis.

Recently, Polestar published a "Life Cycle Assessment" data on the environmental impact of electric vehicles (EV), admitting that it can make for "uncomfortable reading". The Sweden-based company revealed that its new Polestar 2 EV would need to travel 49,710 miles in the hands of the average European owner to claw back the carbon deficit created during production over the equivalent Volvo XC 40 SUV.

(Lily Lyu contributed to this story.)

(Video cover: File photo of Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath. /VCG)