Automotive Engineering - April 2024 - 17

COVER STORY
gines, something most analysts agree we will continue
to see on the roads for decades to come. Christian
Schultze, deputy general manager for R&D at Mazda
Motor Europe, told SAE Media that even countries
with growing demand for EVs should consider eFuels.
" In Germany, we have a little bit more than 2.5% EVs
on the market, but 97% or so are conventional vehicles, "
he said. " Is it okay to leave them as they are? Or
shouldn't we try something to reduce their emissions
as well? There's only one way to do that: by changing
the fuel. "
Schultze said synthetic fuels are easier to use than
advanced biofuels that may be difficult to blend with
standard fuels because eFuels can be made chemically
identical to petroleum-based fuels. When the fuel is
burned, the same CO2 that was taken from the air is
released into the atmosphere again. The benefit is that
this CO2 isn't newly extracted fossil-based CO2, as
Shultze made clear.
" If I can replace 20% fossil fuels in the existing fleet,
that may not sound like much, but this will be ten
times more than all our electric vehicles are now
achieving, which we have brought to the market with
a lot of money, high investments, subsidies, incentives
and more, " he said. " What does it say to us? That we
should better have a multi-solution approach, that is
what Mazda is saying. "
A world with plentiful synthetic fuels also helps car
buyers keep the residual values of their current ICE
vehicles high, Schultze said. More eFuels would also
help countries without substantial EV fleets because
the " nearly " carbon-neutral drop-in synthetic fuels
could replace traditional fossil fuels without significant
infrastructure changes.
Japan, Europe getting on board
In mid-2022, six Japanese companies - Eneos,
Suzuki, Subaru, Daihatsu, Toyota Motor Corporation,
and Toyota Tsusho Corporation - joined to form the
Research Association of Biomass Innovation for Next
Generation Automobile Fuels to " study ways to optimize
the process of producing fuel. " In March 2023,
Mazda joined the group, also known as RABIT.
Other supporters of synthetic fuels have banded
together in the eFuel Alliance, which counts Mazda,
ZF, Bosch, and Porsche as members, along with oil
companies like ExxonMobil and Repsol. Sal Ahmed,
the head of Transformation, Strategy and Digitalization
for ZF's E-Mobility Division, told SAE Media that the
ZF Group supports a technology-open approach for
policies affecting its products, including new transmissions
that use alternative fuels.
" Synthetic fuels or e-fuels represent one of several
options to decarbonize vehicle fleets for both LDV as
AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
Porsche's eFuel project in Chile filters carbon dioxide (CO2) directly out of the
ambient air to later be combined with hydrogen to make liquid fuels.
Porsche's Haru Oni production facility in Punta Arenas, Chile, is producing
around 130,000 liters of eFuel annually during its test period.
well as HDV, " Ahmed said, adding that ZF appreciates the fact the
European Parliament and Council of the European Union have tasked
the European Commission to examine a methodology of registering
both LDVs and HDVs that run on synthetic fuels.
" In the US, legislative and regulatory action on this topic has been
less acute, but we support a broad approach to responsibly reducing
transportation-related emissions in all vehicle segments, including
eFuels, " he said.
Synthetic fuels appear to be on a better path in Europe, driven in
part by upcoming changes to European CO2 standards expected in
2026, according to Mazda's Schultze. These regulations, which first
went into force in January 2020, updated older European vehicle
CO2 regulations from 2009 (for cars) and 2011 (for vans) and were
themselves updated in April 2023. The upcoming changes have been
in the works for more than two years, Schultze said, and are part of a
broadening look at how best to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere.
" [Electricity remains] one of the possible opportunities, but what we
see is simply that the uptake of electric vehicles across Europe is not
as big as maybe it was expected to be, and we need to question if they
April 2024 17
BOTH IMAGES: PORSCHE
Automotive Engineering - April 2024

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