Porsche Successfully Replaces Car’s Gas With Air And Water
There’s little doubt that the future for automotives is electric. With that being said, there will be people who won’t bear to part with their old, gasoline-driven cars. Porsche may have a solution for those drivers.
The German automaker has been busy setting up its synthetic fuel plant in Punta Arenas, Chile, with startup Highly Innovative Fuels (HIF), whose services Porsche had first pumped US$22 million into before it topped up an additional UAS$75 million this year. The plant’s electricity is generated by wind turbines.
The south of Chile, where the facility is located, is ideal for wind power, since it’s breezy about 270 days a year there, says Porsche.
Now, the two companies have developed an alternative fuel made of air and water that drivers can use in their current cars.
The site used its first drops of biofuel to power up a Porsche 911 at a “ceremonial fueling” led by Barbara Frenkel, executive board member for procurement at Porsche AG, and Michael Steiner, executive board member for development and research.
Image via Porsche
Porsche is racing against the lane of electrics, convinced that there is untapped potential in all those cars already running around on the road.
“The potential of eFuels is huge,” Steiner comments. “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.”
Steiner adds: “As the manufacturer of high-performance, efficient engines, Porsche has a wide range of know-how in the field of fuels.”
The sustainable fuel is made by mixing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the surroundings with water (H2O), creating the synthetic gas C8H18.
Although carbon dioxide is still emitted in the process, the gas is considered carbon-neutral, since the amount of carbon remains the same as before the eFuels are burned.
Just as compatible this synthetic fuel is with ordinary gasoline cars, it can also be transported and distributed around the world in the same way as traditional fuels.
Perhaps the biggest barrier for customers now is whether the eco alternative will be sustainable for their wallets. As per Motor Trend, the cost per gallon of synthetic fuel is US$45, though this could go down to just US$8 per gallon by 2026.
The eFuel will undergo further testing before it finally becomes available to the market. Before that, it will be used at Porsche’s Mobil 1 Supercup and at Porsche Experience Centers.
The plant will now pump 130,000 liters (34,342 gallons) of the fuel per year. Post-pilot, Porsche intends to produce 55 million liters (14.53 million gallons) per year by the middle of the decade, before reaching a production capacity of 550 million liters (145.3 million gallon) two years later.
