When you’re facing a world that seems to be moving away from the internal combustion engines that we’ve always known and loved to electrification, it’s time to maybe reconsider your options. But instead of making some cool electric cars, Porsche is considering a different option: clean-burning synthetic fuel.
In an interview with Evo, Porsche’s Vice President Motorsport and GT cars, Dr. Frank Walliser, stated that the company has been envisioning something called eFuel, a synthetic fuel that would have the same carbon output as an electric car. Testing is supposed to start off in 2022, and it would be possible to use this fuel in any internal combustion car without having to go through the lengthy — and expensive — process of converting it.
From the article:
“Synthetic fuels are very important to allow us to reduce our CO2 output. Emissions are way better than current pump fuel, with less particulates and less NOx produced; synthetic fuels have between eight to ten components whereas petrol today has 30-40 and not all of them are welcome,” Walliser explained.
“Synthetic fuel is cleaner and there is no bi-product and when we start full production we expect a CO2 reduction of 85 per cent. From a ‘well to wheel’ perspective – and you have to consider the well to wheel impact of all vehicles – this will be the same level of CO2 produced in the manufacture and use of an electric vehicle.”
It’s going to take a hell of a lot of time and money to produce even a little bit of these eFuels, but Porsche is confident that it’s going to be a good thing for the market — and the environment. Plenty of folks are still loath to give up their ICE vehicles for a variety of reasons, and I’m sure if car enthusiasts could maintain the purr of a powerful engine, we’d have a lot more folks willing to do better for the environment.
While eFuel technology has been in its infancy for over a decade, the stringent anti-carbon laws being enacted around the globe in the next decade have spurred on development.