Luxury Car Maker Is Replacing Gasoline With Air And Water

While companies such as Tesla and Toyota have been building electric cars for quite some time now, Porsche has touched upon a new way to save the planet. For the first time ever, the German manufacturer has filled the iconic 911 with a fuel that has been created out of just water and air. This eFuel is created by a company called Highly Innovative Fuels- a company in which Porsche has invested heavily. The main fuel-producing plant of this company has been installed in Punta Arenas, Chile, for it is powered by wind, and the country produces wind around 270 days of the year. [1]

The fuel is created from a combination of the carbon captured in the atmosphere with water, producing hydrogen- which leads to methane. Interestingly, this methane is converted into a fuel that works quite similarly to gasoline—in a recent interview with Fox News, a spokesman for Porsche stated that the 911 used for the demo of this fuel needed absolutely no modifications, and any car that required gasoline would be able to use this fuel. According to reports, the primary plant has an annual output of 34,342 gallons, but that would be ramped all the way up to 145.3 gallons by the end of the decade. 

Porsche Has Invested In A Company That Creates eFuel

Porsche had been working with quite a few startups over the last few years in their attempt to secure new liquid fuels as a supplement to the electric vehicles constructed by the VW Group. The company has also considered eFuel as a green alternative to EVs on what they consider to be a double-e path, one that encompasses both eFuels, and e-mobility. The company has also alluded to eFuel as a pragmatic, rational substitute that would allow internal-combustion engine vehicles to run in a CO2-neutral manner. And this would be exacerbated with the power plant already expected to produce 145 gallons of biofuel every year by the end of 2029. [2]

Michael Steiner, a member of the Executive Board for Development and Research at Porsche AG, stated, “The potential of eFuels is huge. There are currently more than 1.3 billion vehicles with combustion engines worldwide. Many of these will be on the roads for decades to come, and eFuels offer the owners of existing cars a nearly carbon-neutral alternative. As the manufacturer of high-performance, efficient engines, Porsche has a wide range of know-how in the field of fuels.” While the cost of the fuel per gallon is around $45, a report from the company states that it should ideally be under a sum of $8 per gallon by 2026. Needless to say, the company has massive plans of using the fuel for their special ventures, which would also include the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup racing series.

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Porsche Has Made A Commitment To Use eFuel Wherever Possible

Despite these lofty ambitions, it could take some time for Porsche to truly ingratiate the eFuel in their normal operations. Barbara Frenkel, a Member of the Executive Board for Procurement at Porsche AG, stated, “Porsche is committed to a double-e path: e-mobility and eFuels as a complementary technology.

Looking at the entire traffic sector, the industrial production of synthetic fuels should keep being pushed forward worldwide. With the eFuels pilot plant, Porsche is playing a leading role in this development.” And if media reports are to be believed, other manufacturing companies could soon collaborate with Porsche. Stephan Winkelmann, the CEO of Lamborghini, stated, “This is something that we are still looking into, we have to see what the legislature is going to say in the next couple of years if there is an opportunity or a window open also for those types of cars with hybrids still in the 30s by utilizing synthetic fuel.” [3]

How Soon Could We Start Using It On A Global Level?

Since eFuel requires as much carbon dioxide to make as it ends up emitting in its emissions, this serves as a net-zero fuel that would be used for widespread use under rules of future emissions. The car company, along with other manufacturing brands, therefore, has started analyzing the implementation of this eFuel that could be used to preserve the performance and the entertainment benefits of internal combustion engines in the products. 

In April 2022, HIF Global went on to announce that it had managed to secure equity investments from several companies that, included Porsche- which had a total worth of $260 million. The money, soon, was used to assist in the expansion of HIF’s decarbonization business, which also included creating carbon-neutral eFuels projects in Chile, the US, and Australia. Porsche also reportedly announced that it had invested close to $100 million in the development of eFuel and production, which included a whopping $75 million in HIF. [4]

Barbara Frenkely commented that it made absolute sense to utilize green energy wherever it was possible. “If there is not enough renewable energy available, it makes much more sense that you use this energy directly in electric cars. Our strategy is to push fully on electromobility, and we have eFuels in addition. Therefore, especially when it comes to Europe, it’s of essential importance that the government increases the ambition to establish a good charging infrastructure based on renewable energy.”

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