Luxury carmakers’ push for synthetic e-fuels has weakened the European Union’s plan to take internal combustion engines off the road in the future. After weeks of delay, the Council of the European Union today adopted regulations to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions from new cars and vans by 2035. This would have meant an effective ban on internal combustion engine (ICE) cars. if it weren’t for the latest… minute update that sets an exemption for ICE cars that switch from gasoline to e-fuels.
E-fuel is a synthetic alternative that can be made from air and water with electricity. While running on e-fuel instead of gasoline can reduce carbon dioxide emissions, it’s still expensive and inefficient. And some experts worry that making room for e-fuels within clean energy transition plans will only keep more gas-guzzling cars on the road.
“We have it as a stagnant technique to try to save the internal combustion engine and create a future for it.”
Regulations adopted by the EU today set a target of 100% reduction in global warming carbon dioxide emissions from cars and vans by 2035. There is no way a car running on gasoline could achieve this goal, so it could have created a de facto ban on selling new cars with an internal combustion engine. The rule was expected to be finalized earlier this month, but Germany essentially withheld its vote until the rules were revised to explicitly allow traditional cars to run on e-fuels.
Electronic fuel can be made by removing carbon dioxide from air and hydrogen from water. These molecules are combined to make new synthetic fuels. There is a new technology called direct air capture that allows this CO2 to be removed from the atmosphere, which is why e-fuel made from renewable energy can be considered “carbon neutral”. Burning e-fuel still produces carbon dioxide pollution, but the idea is that taking CO2 out of the atmosphere to make the fuel cancels out those emissions.
German carmaker Porsche is promoting e-fuel as a way to tackle climate change while continuing to make lightweight combustion engine vehicles, unlike electric vehicles that tend to be heavier than traditional cars because of the battery . Porsche has invested more than $100 million in e-fuel development, including $75 million in a company that operates a small e-fuel plant in Chile.
But there could be some big bumps in the road for e-fuels in the EU’s climate plans. There is currently no commercial supply of this alternative fuel, and it would be very expensive to manufacture, costing about $7 a liter (more than $25 a gallon), the ICCT estimates. Removing molecules from air and water also consumes energy, making it four times more efficient to use renewable electricity to charge an electric vehicle battery than to use it to make e-fuel for a car, according to the ICCT . (The Virgin has a more in-depth breakdown of how e-fuels are made and the challenges here.)
Crucially, the EU has yet to figure out how to assess whether an internal combustion engine vehicle on the road after 2035 is actually running on e-fuel rather than old petrol. This is still not entirely clear with the rules adopted today. From now on, the EU says that “the Commission will make a proposal to register vehicles that run exclusively on CO2-neutral fuels”.
