Porsche announced the official opening of its Haru Oni eFuels pilot plant in Punta Arenas, Chile, yesterday, from which the brand will produce carbon-neutral gasoline that will fuel the combustion-powered Porsche for years to come, both on the road and on track. To signify the occasion, Chilean Energy Minister Diego Pardow fuelled a Porsche 911 with the first synthetic fuel from the plant.

Porsche is one of the few automakers heavily invested in the development and production of synthetic fuels, or eFuels as they are commonly called. We've delved into the details of synthetic fuels here, but the basic principle is creating synthetic gasoline using hydrogen from water and carbon dioxide already present in the environment. By using carbon already present in the atmosphere, the gasoline emits only the carbon used to create it, nothing more, nothing less, resulting in a net zero carbon footprint.

Why eFuels?

While Porsche is fully committed to e-mobility - the plan is for 80% of its vehicles sold in 2030 to be pure BEVs (battery electric vehicles) - the automaker understands that the purchase of a new EV does not mean the ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicle will suddenly disappear. According to Michael Steiner, member of the executive board for development and research at Porsche, "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 estimates that even in 10-20 years, the number of ICE-powered vehicles on the road could still number above one billion. All of these need to be fuelled somehow, and Porsche postulates that these could be fuelled in a carbon-neutral fashion long before political mandates require most new cars to be fully electric.

Why Choose Chile?

Integral to the production of synthetic fuel is the harvesting of hydrogen from water by means of electrolysis. This is an energy-intensive process, and the carbon neutrality of the fuel hinges heavily on this step of the production cycle being fueled by renewable energy. Chile was thus selected due to its high winds on a year-round basis. It is estimated that 270 days of every year see high wind levels, enabling wind turbines to operate at full capacity. The wind in Chile enables up to four times more renewable energy than other sites around the world.

How Much Can Porsche Produce And How Much Will It Cost?

Production at the facility will ramp up slowly, starting at 130,000 liters of eFuel per year, ramping up to 55 million liters (14.5 million gallons) by the middle of the decade, and full production capacity of 550 million liters (145 million gallons) by 2027. This one facility alone is not enough to meet global or even American demand. In the US alone, we use more than 1,000 times that final figure. However, this is the first facility of many, and Steiner tells us that Highly Innovative Fuels (HIF) - one of Porsche's partners alongside Siemens and ExxonMobil - has a plan for more and bigger plants going forward, of which Porsche is a backer.

Now for the cost. First things first, Porsche's eFuel is not for sale to the public. Instead, the plant will supply fuel to the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup and Porsche Experience Centers globally as so-called 'lighthouse projects.' The fuels require no modification and are a direct gasoline substitute. However, even when they are available to the public, they will not be cheap. Porsche is targeting a production cost of $2 per liter by the time production fully ramps up. That's merely the price of production, however, as the price of sale is affected in many markets by varying factors, including CO₂ taxation. Porsche says that scaling up production could lead to a further cost reduction, but that's only at current production costs.

Does This Mean Porsche Will Keep Building Combustion Cars?

Not quite. Porsche made it blatantly clear that the success of this product would not influence the company's corporate strategy. Porsche remains dedicated towards carbon neutrality by 2030, with BEVs to account for 80% of vehicles sold in that same year.

Representatives made clear that this fuel is a means of supporting older and existing Porsche products, not a means of escaping electrification.

The good news is that these eFuels are high in quality and fully compliant with all current legislation. While there are loopholes in EU legislation to potentially allow the use of eFuels instead of EVs in the future, nothing has been finalized. When quizzed on whether the combustion of eFuels results in emissions that hamper air quality - such regulations have seen vehicles banned from or heavily taxed when entering major European city centers - Steiner pointed out that the fuel's exhaust emissions are "often better than [the] ambient air in [these] cities."

Still Early Days

It's early days for Porsche and for eFuels, but the opening of the production facility in Chile is a massive step towards an alternative means of propulsion to electrification. While cost parity may never be achieved, synthetic fuels will keep alive the prospect and the history of combustion for future generations.

More than this, the doors are opened to replacing crude oil with non-fossil derived alternatives that are carbon neutral. So long as the synthesization of the green methanol is handled using green energy, this methanol can be shipped globally to refineries that can process it into many end products, all with a fraction of the carbon footprint we currently experience.

Others will join in the fray. Steiner confirmed that within the VW Group, several companies are supporting the initiative - likely to be Bentley, given our previous discussions with Bentley executives - but he also acknowledges that rival sports car manufacturers (Aston Martin) are involved in the development of similar fuels. This is something Porsche welcomes, as it will merely speed up the development and adoption of such fuels, making them more viable for global use where EVs are not a viable cure-all.