The Internal Combustion Engine is SAVED!

[KungFooBob]

Maybe, and by the Germans of all people.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos- ... 023-03-21/

[Buckaroo]

Interesting approach and if achieved will guarantee at least two things: expensive vehicles/fuel plus some very wealthy investors.

Made me think about the switch over from horses many decades ago.....hmmmm.

[Mr. Dazzle]

It's a nice sounding idea, but synthetic fuels are never gonna be anything other than niche IMO for some pretty fundamental reasons.

You've basically got two ways to make them:

1) Grow crops and then 'brew' fuel. This is basically saying you're making your ICE car solar powered. The Sun->Wheel energy efficiency of that process is an order of magnitude worse than a Solar Panel->EV car. Even if you don't care about the environmental impact of that, it means synthetic fuels will be massively more expensive.

2) Pull CO2 out of the air and mix it with Hydrogen to make fuel. You need to make green energy to run that process, you also need to make more green energy to make the Hydrogen. So why wouldn't you either a) just use that green energy directly in an EV or b) use that green hydrogen in either a hydrogen fuel cell EV or a hydrogen ICE? As above, either of those things is gonna be an order of magnitude more efficient/cheaper.

That's why I think synthetic fuelled 'conventional' ICE is gonna be niche.

[Skub]

Interesting stuff.

[Mussels]

It's a nice sounding idea, but synthetic fuels are never gonna be anything other than niche IMO for some pretty fundamental reasons.

You've basically got two ways to make them:

1) Grow crops and then 'brew' fuel. This is basically saying you're making your ICE car solar powered. The Sun->Wheel energy efficiency of that process is an order of magnitude worse than a Solar Panel->EV car. Even if you don't care about the environmental impact of that, it means synthetic fuels will be massively more expensive.

2) Pull CO2 out of the air and mix it with Hydrogen to make fuel. You need to make green energy to run that process, you also need to make more green energy to make the Hydrogen. So why wouldn't you either a) just use that green energy directly in an EV or b) use that green hydrogen in either a hydrogen fuel cell EV or a hydrogen ICE? As above, either of those things is gonna be an order of magnitude more efficient/cheaper.

That's why I think synthetic fuelled 'conventional' ICE is gonna be niche.

Dunno, they could well make E-fuel viable before anyone invents a good EV battery and fuelling system.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Dunno, they could well make E-fuel viable before anyone invents a good EV battery and fuelling system.

How? As above, even with todays tech a pure electric or hydrogen fuelled car is massively more efficient - and therefore ultimately cheaper - than an ICE running on a synth fuel.

Even if you could make the production of synthetic fuel as energy efficient as charging batteries from sun/wind/nuclear whatever you're still putting it in an engine which is 3 to 10 times less efficient than an EV. The basic physics just mean synthetic fuel is gonna be running at a serious cost disadvantage.

The only reason ICE makes sense compared to an EV at the moment is becuase you can run it on fuel dug up out of the ground. That's it...it's the entire basis of ICE vehicles of all kinds. If you decide you're not gonna do that any more and you have to compete "on the same level" as an EV, hydrogen etc. car you're operating at a huge disadvantage.

People might choose to pay the higher price for synthetic fuel, but it's gonna be like running a coal fired steam engine today. There're few logical reasons to do it.

[Mussels]

There's still room for an alternative, E-fuel is clearly not ready yet but neither are batteries or hydrogen.
I'm fine with an electric motor driving my wheels, I care about the cost and journey times so I'm still waiting for an alternative fuel breakthrough and I don't really care which one wins.

[Horse]

Dunno, they could well make E-fuel viable before anyone invents a good EV battery and fuelling system.

There're few logical reasons to do it.

'Refueling duration'?

Liquid - moments
Electricity - ages

[gremlin]

I see ICEs going the way of the horse, i.e from workhorses to things of pleasure enjoyed by enthusiasts who want to dedicate time and money to the hobby.

Everyone else who doesn't really care will simply take the path of least resistance and go with the least hassle form of transport, whatever that may be, though probably leccy.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Dunno, they could well make E-fuel viable before anyone invents a good EV battery and fuelling system.

There're few logical reasons to do it.

'Refueling duration'?

Liquid - moments
Electricity - ages

If that's a requirement you'd use Hydrogen. Why bother making hydrogen to support the production of "petrol". You can just use the hydrogen itself at lower cost.

[The Spin Doctor]

If you're going to make enough bio-fuel to power cars, you'd be turning over most of the land currently used for crops to produce the volume required.

Whilst in theory you could use solar to produce synthetic fuel, large arrays of solar cells sunlight would be needed - the typical efficiency of commercial solar panels is around 15-20%, so to produce the 28.6 million barrels of synthetic fuel needed to power road transport, you'd need approximately 18,500 square kilometres (7,145 square miles) of solar panels, equivalent to an area slightly larger than the state of Connecticut in the United States. Then you have to ship it to where it's needed.

And the vast majority of hydrogen is sources from oil or coal and it's far from being carbon-neutral. Japan's shift to a hydrogen powered economy is based on getting Australia to do the dirty work of mining and processing the coal, then shipping the 'clean' hydrogen to them.

[The Spin Doctor]

'Refueling duration'?

Liquid - moments
Electricity - ages

Lightning in the US are trialling battery technology which allows a 10 minute 'refuel'.

Sodium-ion batteries, though heavier and less energy dense than Li-ion, also charge considerably faster.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Whilst in theory you could use solar to produce synthetic fuel, large arrays of solar cells sunlight would be needed - the typical efficiency of commercial solar panels is around 15-20%, so to produce the 28.6 million barrels of synthetic fuel needed to power road transport, you'd need approximately 18,500 square kilometres (7,145 square miles) of solar panels,

Well this is the thing...

If you say "I'm gonna make all cars EV and solar powered" people will scoff and say you can never make enough solar panels.

If you say "I'm gonna make e fuels using solar power at 1/10th the efficiency of a solar powered EV" suddenly people think that's a great idea