Can e-fuels help make cars CO2-neutral?

The European Union has plans to create a new vehicle category, cars that run on carbon neutral e-fuelers. The proposal is part of the EU's effort to resolve a spat with Germany, with the move to phase out combustion engine cars. The new plan will allow sales of new cars with internal combustion engines after 2035, if they run only on climate neutral e-fuelers. So what exactly are e-fuelers? E-kerosine, E-methane, or E-methanol are all examples of e-fuelers. They are produced using renewable electricity from hydrogen and captured CO2 emissions. The fuels release CO2 into the atmosphere when used in an engine, but the idea is that those emissions are equal to the amount taken out of the atmosphere to produce the fuel. That makes them CO2 neutral overall.

The technology is at an early stage of development, and e-fuels are not yet produced scale. Most major car makers are betting on battery electric vehicles, a technology that is already widely available, but suppliers and oil majors defend e-fuels, as well as a number of car makers who don't want their vehicles weighed down by heavy batteries. Car makers such as Piers, Porsche and Mazda are broadly supportive of the technology. The world's first commercial plant opened in Chile in 2021, backed by Porsche, and BMW has invested $12.5 million in e-fuel startup Prometheus fuels, while also investing billions in battery electric technology. So can e-fuels truly make our cars green? Supporters say e-fuels offer a route to cut the CO2 emissions of our existing cars without the need to replace every car with an electric one. Critics highlight that manufacturing e-fuels is very expensive and energy-intensive, and some argue e-fuels should be reserved for hard to decarbonise sectors like shipping and aviation, not cars.

Here is Greenpeace spokesperson Benjamin Stepan. However, there are many of these in the aircraft where we have no alternatives. In the car, this solution is completely inefficient, because we need a lot of electricity for manufacturing, and an electric car would drive five times as far with the same amount of electricity.

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