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Some of the world’s biggest carmakers, engineering and petrol companies are joining forces to save petrol-powered cars.
BMW and Toyota are running a pilot program with Spanish petrochemical company Repsol and German industrial giant Bosch to see if they can make 100 per cent renewable petrol work in the real world.
The six-month long experiment will use about 20 BMW and Toyota vehicles powered by Repsol’s 100 per cent renewable petrol, dubbed Nexa 95.
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Bosch will be tracking the refuelling data to validate the experiment’s success.
Nexa 95 is produced with European Union compliant feedstocks, which have to meet strict renewable targets.
A feedstock is a raw material that is used to make the fuel, and Nexa 95 is derived from agricultural and forestry residues, used cooking oils and other sustainable organic waste.
It isn’t carbon neutral but reduces net CO2 emissions by more than 70 per cent compared to conventional petrol-powered vehicles.
It is fully compatible with petrol vehicles without the need for any modifications and can be delivered via the existing refuelling infrastructure, with the fuel already available in a number of Spanish petrol stations.
The program is trying to work out if vehicles running on this fuel can be deployed at scale to help decarbonise transport.
Electric vehicle sales are growing in Australia and in many other countries, but the majority of sales in Europe, the US, Australia and many other places still use petrol as their primary fuel source.
A switch to a renewable fuel source could dramatically cut emissions without forcing drivers to switch to expensive battery-powered electric vehicles.
Toyota Europe executive Pascal Ruch said this fuel could make a meaningful contribution to decarbonisation today, and can be applied to older vehicles.
“We believe renewable fuels can play a key role alongside electrification in reducing CO₂ emissions,” said Ruch.
“It is becoming clear that there is a growing risk that 100 per cent zero-emission vehicles by 2035 may not be fully achieved. In such a scenario, renewable fuels can help bridge the gap to deliver carbon neutrality, especially when combined with hybrid and plug-in hybrid technologies,” he said.
BMW and Toyota are two companies striving to find an alternative to battery-powered electric cars.
The two have also teamed up in developing hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (FCEV), which are a different type of electric car.
FCEVs turn hydrogen into electricity, which then powers an electric motor. Water is the only tailpipe emission.
