News last year that combustion-engine cars will gain a reprieve in the European Union after 2035 as long as they run on carbon-neutral e-fuels was cause for celebration among the exemption’s chief backers in Germany.
However, not everyone is convinced that legislators are fully behind the shift. BMW CEO Oliver Zipse voiced suspicion that, despite including the exemption, the European Commission is still aiming for what amounts to a de facto ban on combustion engines.
“There are currently many indications that the European Commission is driving for a bogus solution in which the ban on combustion engines is relaxed simply by ostensibly opening up to e-fuels,” Zipse told analysts on the company’s second-quarter earnings call.
Germany was the driving force behind the exemption, which would allow car makers to continue to sell their most profitable combustion-engine models even after the bulk of their fleet had been switched over to electric. The previous Conservative government ruled out the use of e-fuels in the UK for new cars.
However, BMW’s fear is that the European Commission is banking on energy companies failing to establish a credible e-fuels industry. “If the Commission does nothing to accelerate the ramp-up of low-CO2 fuels and make their use practicable, this would be a deliberate ban on combustion engines through the back door,” Zipse said. “We continue to believe that a categorial ban on combustion technology in 2035 is the wrong approach.”
E-fuels are a synthetic fuel produced using ‘green’ hydrogen and carbon. They are made by separating water into its hydrogen and oxygen components using electrolysis, then combining the hydrogen with CO2 from the air and converting it into a liquid energy carrier.
The problem the energy industry faces in making e-fuels with this method is that it is incredibly energy intensive and it requires the electricity used to come from renewable sources.
Reportedly, the European Commission has said any fuels used for new vehicles with combustion engines to be sold after 2035 must be climate-neutral.
That would tie in with the concession being made in line with the EU’s promise to reaching 'net-zero' CO2 emissions by 2050 but, according to draft wording, it also requires the electricity to come from renewable-energy generators that wouldn’t have otherwise been built, so it doesn’t divert green energy from the grid.
The German government, led by transport minister Volker Wissing, is pressuring the EU to dial back that requirement to make it fully carbon neutral. “We need to find a provision that fits into the European regulatory system and that, above all, allows the use of synthetic fuels with internal combustion engines,” he said. “This can’t be 100%,” Wissing told an e-fuels conference last September, according to an Euractiv report. Some within the Commission have floated a 70% reduction in carbon emissions.
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