Porsche Is Saving Petrol Cars From Going Extinct

5 min read

According to the European Commission for Energy, Climate change and Environment, passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (vans) are responsible for 19% of total CO2 emissions in Europe. It is because of this fact that in February 2023 EU countries came to an agreement to ban the sale of all new petrol and diesel passenger cars and vans by 2035. Although they are no longer part of the EU, the UK has also signed this law, with Canada and California doing the same.

This is unprecedented law has forced carmakers to get increasingly innovative with their EV technology, and Porsche is no exception. The German carmaker has devised a plan that will allow it to run net-zero petrol cars using synthetic fuels. Synthetic fuel is a liquid fuel produced by capturing carbon from the air and hydrogen from water, using renewable energy. The concept is that the CO2 emitted from cars running on synthetic fuel is less than or equal to the removal of greenhouse gases in the production of that synthetic fuel, usually by taking carbon out of the atmosphere. The fuel can be used to power commercial vehicles, airplanes, trains, and even large industrial machinery such as mining trucks.

Porsche is using a synthetic fuel called e-fuel to bring this concept into reality. They are testing racing e-fuels, which they are developing with Exxon Mobil, in their 911 GT3 racing cars in the Mobil 1 Supercup. The company is also using e-fuels to power its pre-1996 cars that are kept as part of its museum.

According to the former Porsche VP Dr. Frank Walliser, in theory, synthetic fuels would reduce the CO2 emissions of petrol and diesel cars by around 85%. Although that is not net-zero, it is a substantial decrease and will do a lot to slow down climate change. It also reduces the charging time issue as well as range anxiety associated with EVs.

Porsche has invested almost R2 billion in a synthetic fuel factory in Chile which produces around 130 000 litres of e-fuels per year. All that e-fuel goes to powering Porsche’s 911 GT3 racing cars in the Mobil 1 Supercup. The company says it has plans to increase production to 55 million litres per year by 2026 and then ramp up to 10 times that amount by 2028.

However, synthetic fuels also have their flaws and doubts. Firstly, the synthetic fuels are currently not available for sale. This is because they are still in test and developmental stages. It will also be a long while before we see them come to market. At the 2023 Munich motor show, Porsche’s senior project lead for e-fuels, Karl Dums, confirmed to CAR magazine that the company plans to place its synthetic fuel on sale by the end of the decade.

Secondly, there will have to be a massive investment in the production of synthetic fuels for it to reach global demand. The US uses about 7.3 billion barrels of petroleum per year. This would mean that we need around 9 600 synthetic fuel factories like the one in Chile just to satisfy America’s demand.

Thirdly, e-fuels are only carbon neutral if the electricity used to produce them come from renewable resources, such as wind, solar, hydro, nuclear and the like. This is why Porsche built its factory in Chile; a part of the world where wind blows for 270 days per year and with high enough speeds to power wind turbines. This then produces electricity that the factory uses to extract hydrogen from water and combine it with the captured carbon dioxide to produce synthetic fuel.

Porsche is not the only car manufacturer using synthetic fuels. Audi, Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault, and McLaren to name a few, are all investing in the research of synthetic fuels. This is in addition to organisations such as Formula 1 where all cars run on e-fuels. Today’s F1 cars run on ‘E-10’ fuel, which is a 90% fossil fuel and 10% e-fuel blend. The sport has a made a commitment that by 2026 all cars will run on 100% of this e-fuel. Large energy companies such as Sasol and Shell are also running synthetic fuel operations.

Although the ban on all new petrol and diesel cars has seemed to spark innovation in some car companies, it has attracted pushback from others. President of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, warned the silent majority are wondering whether EVs are really okay to have as a single option and said that the industry should be realistic about their goal to stop selling petrol and diesel cars by 2035. BMW’s chairman of the board of management, Oliver Zipse, said that a purely EV world only works if you have “an abundance of renewable energy, a seamless private and public charging infrastructure network and access to raw materials”.

All of this has caused governments to change the law from all new car sales having to be non-petrol and diesel to all new car sales having to be zero-emissions. This means that we will still be able to use the normal internal combustion engine cars, as long as they are powered by e-fuels. This is also what makes Porsche’s e-fuel venture a saviour for petrol and diesel cars, preventing them from going extinct.

What are your thoughts on loud-engine petrol and diesel cars possibly being saved by synthetic fuels? Share your thoughts by replying to this email!

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