Electric car-Skeptics put on E-fuelsthat clean conventional internal combustion engines. Hope will probably not come true.
You are the biggest competitor of the electric car when it comes to CO2-free road traffic: E-fuels, synthetic fuels produced with the help of renewable energies. Above all, opponents and skeptics of e-mobility bring the climate-friendly substitute for mineral oil, petrol and diesel into position again and again. As a rule, however, these are mock battles.
Environmentally friendly burners
“E-Fuel” or “Power-to-X-Fuel” (“PtX”) refers to different types of alternative fuels. In a broader sense, this includes hydrogen, in a narrower sense more processed liquid ("PtL") or gaseous ("PtG") designer sprits that can be used directly in today's internal combustion engines. The latter in particular is what makes e-fuels so attractive - the current and future car fleets could be operated in a climate-neutral manner without the need to invest in e-mobility, batteries and charging stations. It is therefore a kind of indirect electrification of transport in which the electricity is not used directly, but is first converted into fuel.
Better to use green electricity in e-cars
During the conversion, however, there are high losses. E-fuels therefore have by far the worst efficiency of all available drive technologies at around 15 percent. Large amounts of green electricity are required for production, which could be used much more efficiently in a battery electric car (efficiency: 70 percent). Not only because of this, the production is also very expensive to top it off. Both reasons why large-scale e-fuel production has not yet existed anywhere in the world.
Without e-fuels, however, a green turnaround in traffic will probably not be possible. However, the electricity-fuel will probably be of particular interest for ship and air traffic. Where battery e-mobility has so far not been an alternative for reasons of space, weight or range considerations. E-fuels are likely to remain expensive exotic vehicles in overland automotive transport - for classic car operations or racing competitions.