Devastating verdict

New study dashes e-fuel hopes for cars

According to a recent study, hydrogen fuel means high costs, poor availability and inefficiency.

(Bild: stock.adobe.com/mikemobil2014 - stock.adobe.com)

A new meta-study destroys the hope of e-fuels as a lifeline for combustion vehicles. The study comes to a devastating conclusion: e-fuels are not a viable alternative to the planned phase-out of combustion engines due to high costs, lack of availability and low efficiency. 

The meta-study by the think tank Forum Ökologisch-Soziale Marktwirtschaft (FÖS) on behalf of Climate Alliance Germany is a systematic overview of all available knowledge in one area. To this end, the FÖS brought together findings from the Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club (ADAC), the German Environment Ministry, the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (Fraunhofer ISI) and the International Energy Agency (IEA), among others.

E-fuels in the passenger car sector are a "mirage"
According to the meta-study, even with high government subsidies, there will not be sufficient quantities of e-fuels available by 2035 to achieve the climate targets. By 2045, the number of cars in Europe is likely to be almost fully electrified, while vehicles powered by e-fuels will only play a marginal role.

"The meta-study proves it: Anyone who questions the European phase-out of combustion engines is misleading car buyers," says Stefanie Langkamp, Head of Policy at Klima-Allianz. E-fuels in the passenger car sector are a "mirage" and not an alternative to e-cars.

This is where e-fuels really make sense
According to the meta-study, 150 onshore wind turbines could supply 240,000 e-cars with electricity, but only 37,500 combustion engines with e-fuels. "The same amount of electricity could therefore be used to power more than six times as many electric vehicles," explains Matthias Runkel, Head of Transport and Financial Policy at FÖS and author of the study.

According to Runkel, e-cars are also much more climate-friendly, because "if you look at the entire life cycle, e-cars cause 40 to 50 percent less CO2 emissions than cars powered by e-fuels". According to the experts, the scarce e-fuel resources should instead be used for sectors that are difficult to electrify, such as aviation and shipping, where they are "indispensable".

EU puts pressure on manufacturers
The EU had decided that from 2035, only new cars that do not emit any climate-damaging CO2 during operation should be registered. Most recently, however, the center-right EPP alliance, among others, wanted to reverse the so-called combustion engine phase-out. At the urging of the FDP, the German government at the time had campaigned for there to be exemptions for so-called e-fuels.