The question of what that means for vehicles driving with synthetic ecological fuel remains open, but is now being addressed by the EU Commission. Although there are no commercially available cars driving with e-fuels yet, the practice is being tested.
Our colleagues from RTL spoke to Anna Krajinska from Transport & Environment, Europe’s “leading clean transport campaign group”, about the implications of the decision for alternative fuels. She explained: “E-fuels are produced through a complex chemical reaction between electricity, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide. They have the potential of being completely renewable and CO2 neutral if the electricity used in the production is green and if the carbon dioxide is removed from the air.”
The end product is able to fuel every type of combustion engine, which would mean that current petrol-station infrastructure could remain intact.
Guido Savi from the Belgian-Luxembourgish automobile federation FEBIAC explained that investments into research are still being increased: “There is a lot of demand from manufacturers. Porsche, for instance, recently announced that they want to focus on investing into e-fuels for the better of their cars.”
A number of studies point out that the alternative fuel is not green enough, arguing that the large amount of electricity needed to get to the end product would better be invested into electric transportation.
Krajinska elaborated: “A car with a conventional petrol-based engine driving with e-fuel produces about 200 grammes of CO2 per kilometre. This includes production as well as emissions. We can compare that to electric cars driving with European electricity, which produce about 50 grammes of CO2 per kilometre.”
The elevated prices of the alternative fuel also make it less attractive for clients, but manufacturers expect them to drop.
One billion cars with traditional combustion engines are estimated to drive around the globe at the moment, which Savi believes to be difficult to replace altogether.
The EU directive will also mean that by 2030, 2% of kerosene used in air traffic has to be produced synthetically.
