Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil (63) thinks e-fuels are interesting, but does not expect synthetic fuels to be used in cars in the near future. The so-called e-fuels would be interesting if a petrol engine could be used CO2-neutrally at affordable prices, said the SPD politician, who is also a member of the supervisory board of the VolkswagenGroup sits, the German Press Agency.
“However, e-fuels also have a major disadvantage: they are extremely energy-intensive, and we need renewable energies in Germany for other purposes in the foreseeable future. For this reason, we won’t be seeing e-fuels in the passenger car sector any time soon.”
Weil continued: “There is a reason that almost the entire global passenger car industry has set out to organize battery-powered electromobility.” That is the technological status now. “But who knows how things will develop.”
The new VW boss Oliver Blume (54) is a supporter of e-fuels. The goals of the Paris climate agreement cannot be achieved with electromobility alone, Blume told the “Automobilwoche” at the end of August. predecessor Herbert Diess (63), on the other hand, had rejected e-fuels because of their poor efficiency and criticized the high power consumption during production.
E-fuels are synthetic fuels for petrol and diesel engines that produce less environmentally harmful emissions than conventional fuel. In contrast to electric vehicles, the combustion of e-fuels still emits CO2 that is harmful to the climate. The production also requires a lot of energy, which makes the fuels very expensive.