Statement on a study presented by "Transport & Environment" on the exhaust emissions of eFuels.

The study on exhaust emissions from eFuels presented by "Transport & Environment (T&E)" quotes a VDMA statement on the planned EURO 7 regulation on page14, please find it here. In this statement, the VDMA states, among other things, that exhaust emissions (NOx, particulates, etc.) can be reduced significantly ("close to zero") when eFuels are used in vehicles with state-of-the-art exhaust gas aftertreatment. This statement is based on scientific studies conducted on various alternative fuels in recent years.

However, the claim that synthetic fuels can also make a significant contribution to reducing pollutant emissions, in addition to their potential to reduce greenhouse gases, is by no means false, as this study by T&E now suggests. Rather, the results of the T&E study itself show significant reduction potential for particulate matter (PM) as well as significant reduction potential for hydrocarbons (HC), confirming existing findings. The picture is mixed for other, already regulated atmospheric emissions; nitrogen oxides (NOx) are at the same level for the tested fuels as their fossil counterparts, carbon monoxides slightly higher in real driving tests. However, the authors must accept the criticism that the study results are based only on the measurement of a single passenger car in which three non-standard fuels were tested. A representativeness of the results is therefore not guaranteed and a generally valid statement in the sense of the title of the T&E study is not tenable from a technical-scientific point of view.

In the short term, eFuels offer the unique opportunity to successively defossilize the vehicle population by blending and using existing infrastructure, with already positive effects on pollutant emissions. In the long term, optimized eFuels can make a significant contribution to the zero-emission vehicle, in combination with solutions for exhaust gas aftertreatment, such as those already being discussed and developed in the context of EURO 7.

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