‘E-fuels and biofuels will not save the petrol engine’, warns the European Court of Auditors | Car

According to the Court of Auditors, so-called e-fuels and biofuels are unsuitable for achieving the EU’s climate objectives in the transport sector. “They are often mentioned as possible successors to petrol and diesel,” says Nikolaos Milionis, who is responsible for monitoring climate spending in the EU transport sector. “But they cannot currently provide a credible, reliable alternative at scale .”

The Court accuses the European car industry of failing to reduce CO2 emissions from new vehicles, despite all the technical improvements. “We have to note with regret that most conventional cars, despite ambitious targets and strict requirements, still emit as much CO2 as they did twelve years ago,” said Court of Auditor Milionis. The engines have become more efficient, but emissions have not reduced because cars are on average about 10 percent heavier. And the engines, in turn, have become about 25 percent more powerful, partly to move this weight.

On the one hand, according to the Court of Auditors, the biomass produced in the EU is not sufficient to constitute a serious alternative to conventional fossil fuels. “However, if the required biomass is mainly imported from third countries, this would conflict with the goal of strategic autonomy in the energy sector,” Milionis explains. “In addition, biofuels compete for raw materials with, for example, the food and pharmaceutical industries and their they are not available everywhere.”

The Court therefore recommends that EU policymakers continue to promote battery electric cars ‘as the only viable alternative’. However, there are several problems. On the one hand, electric cars are still too expensive for end customers to have a major effect on the CO2 traffic balance. On the other hand, Europe is highly dependent on many battery raw materials, which poses serious geopolitical risks. Many commodity countries are politically unstable.

However, the Court of Auditors is concerned about the slow development of the charging infrastructure on a European scale. “There is a shortage of charging points across the EU,” Milionis said. “At the time of the audit, their number was well below the target of 1 million units by 2025. The availability of public charging points also varies widely from country to country 70 percent of the charging points are located in France, Germany and the Netherlands. In addition, there is still no harmonized payment system for the charging stations.”