Bot sent by Polestar to take on climate trolls

TAKING a leaf out of the Greta Thunberg playbook, Polestar has come out swinging by calling out climate change ‘trolls’, specifically on social media network X, ahead of the COP28 climate change summit in the United Arab Emirates.

Putting a spotlight on what the Sino-Swedish BEV specialist describes as online climate change disinformation and misinformation, it is launching what it calls a Polestar Truth Bot on Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) social media platform to help debunk the most common inaccuracies relating to climate change within the automotive industry. 

The car-maker said its initiative launched in the run-up to COP28 came about in light of a deteriorating environment when it comes to the spreading of climate myths on social media. 

In a statement, the company says: “Scientists have raised the alarm about an increase in ‘climate denier bots’, the United Nations has warned that mis- and disinformation are ‘delaying urgent action to ensure a liveable future for the planet’, and a report by Climate Action Against Disinformation reveals that X (Twitter) ranked lowest out of the five major social media platforms for actions to limit the spread of misinformation.

Polestar head of sustainability Fredrika Klarén commented: “The deliberate misuse of climate data is incredibly damaging. Particularly now, in the lead-up to COP28, the conversation is muddied between fact and fiction.

“We believe that the opposite – a truthful use of scientific data – can be a powerful tool to help navigate climate action, and we encourage everyone to join us in spreading this on social platforms.”

Polestar’s Truth Bot is live from 23-30 November in the lead-up to COP28, with the company pledging to use the opportunity to respond to climate myths on X using factual data.

This includes responses to the recent (UN) International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ‘Impacts of global warming of 1.5°C’ special report, and the International Energy Agency ‘The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions’ report.

Polestar’s keen focus on environmental issues was exemplified at a recent event called “Polestar  Day” in the US that, among other things, announced a pilot operation developing a large-scale vehicle-to-grid (V2G) project in Sweden encompassing a large fleet of Polestar 3 cars.

The Polestar plan involves developing a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) to help manage V2G integration that links all participating Polestar 3 cars connected to the grid using the cloud based system to calculate the collective capacity of connected batteries and initiates charging or discharging based on grid demand and battery longevity optimisation. 

Earlier this year, the company was at odds with a number of European car-makers and politicians over the use of e-fuels and a weakening of the European ban on ICE powered cars by 2035, prompting Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath to say “I would call it now almost pathetic,” and that “industry and the politicians should finally give that very clear signal about what is the journey ahead”.

Adding weight to Polestar’s environmental credentials is since 2020, it has shared Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) for all its models in production, including detailed reporting on emissions and climate impact, as well as information on material sourcing and supply chain traceability.

In small but significant steps, Polestar (and Rivian) this year initiated the ‘Pathway’ report from Kearney, a joint effort towards collective climate action within the automotive industry with a related climate discussion panel taking place on December 6.