Stellantis may be committed to selling only battery-electrics in Europe by 2030, but it is also testing “eFuels” (also known as “electrofuels”) on European vehicles made since 2014. The company said eFuels could potentially be used on up to 28 million of their vehicles, possibly reducing another 400 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions in Europe from 2025 on.
eFuel is a synthetic fuel made from captured carbon dioxide and hydrogen using renewable energy. The advantage of this kind of fuel over hydrogen or batteries is its potential as a drop-in replacement: it could simply be used in place of gasoline or diesel fuel, depending on the formulation. The disadvantage, at this time, is much higher cost, but costs could potentially come down as the technologies mature. It also takes more energy than simply using battery power or hydrogen, and still emits methane and nitrous oxide as well as local pollution. However, eFuel can keep cars and trucks running longer, and may be the only serious replacement for long-haul aviation.
In theory, electrofuels use the same amount of carbon dioxide as they produce when burned.
Stellantis is validating 28 engine families made from 2014 to (projected) 2029, both gasoline and diesel, with tests for emissions, starting, power, reliability, durability, oil dilution, fuel storage and delivery, and other related issues. This is important in the European Union, which has a quota demanding a small percentage (1.1%) of eFuel use by 2030.
I don’t know the correct term, but basically my question is will it produce the same amount of energy as gasoline? Will this new E-fuel take a 400hp engine down to only producing like 50hp because it doesn’t do the same thing that gasoline does is what I’m asking. It’s already stated that the technology is expensive at the moment, but will this cost the end consumer more in the long run because they’ll have to refuel quicker because the E-fuel isn’t as efficient as regular gasoline?
As I sit here, I think about the changes with emissions during the timespan of my life. Being born in the early-mid 1980’s and being around cars from that time period-till now, along with working in the auto industry for almost 20years and modifying cars here and there, I’ve watched cars “supposedly” become alot cleaner over the years, including diesel pickups. I remember the late 80’s when cars had air pumps on them for emissions (fox body mustangs) and I also remember when the 96-98 Mustang GTs had six catalytic converters on them from the factory (YES SIX!!!!) It seems like every 8-12 years or so, all of a sudden all of the improvements continue to be not good enough. I’m waiting on the day they start talking about EV emissions and global warming due to the fact that EV batteries give off heat or some other kind of nonsense. We still have plane, boats, trucks and diesel locomotives that pour out tons of pollutants into the air and yet there are no regulations for them. Commercial and residential homes still rely on fossil fuels that we are running out of. Where are the government mandates for residential and commercial buildings to start running on solar energy? Are cruise ships going to start running off of a hybrid system of hydroelectricity and hydrogen fuel cells? are diesel locomotives going to start being replaced by hydrogen-hybrid engines? What “clean energy” fuel source will power commercial and military aircraft in the future? So much attention has been directed towards the auto industry but not enough has been pushed in any other direction and alot of these other areas push out just as much pollution as the auto industry if not more.