From the point of view of the FDP, combustion cars should roll into the future with synthetic fuels. The transport minister sees things differently.
Stuttgart (dpa/lsw) – Transport Minister Winfried Hermann has lowered expectations of synthetic fuels with a view to the transport and climate change. “Anyone who thinks they can save the combustion engine with reFuels is wrong,” said the Greens politician at the German Press Agency in Stuttgart. According to Hermann, the end of the combustion engine was sealed a long time ago. With this attitude, Hermann also indirectly criticizes the FDP, which repeatedly advocates that combustion engines with alternative fuels be operated in a CO2-neutral manner, referring to the large existing fleet.
The topic is also on the agenda of the state parliament on Thursday in addition to the budget deliberations. By 2030, every second car in the country should be climate-neutral. Hermann admitted that with an existing fleet of more than six million vehicles in the country, e-fuels will also be needed to achieve this goal. In his view, however, synthetic fuels are not a panacea. He sees the use of reFuels primarily in air, ship and heavy-duty transport.
In his view, there is a more efficient alternative for the passenger car fleet: electromobility. In the end, synthetic fuels would be needed in car traffic “only as a pacemaker for old vintage cars”.
E-fuels are fuels for petrol or diesel engines that are produced using a chemical process. By so-called “reFuels” (Renewable Energy Fuels), Hermann means fuels that are produced on the basis of renewable energies. Critics argue that the production of synthetic fuels requires an extremely large amount of energy and is therefore expensive and inefficient. Environmentalists therefore do not see e-fuels as a sensible alternative to electromobility.
