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Over €200 to fill up a car – the cost of Germany’s bid to keep combustion engines
(Transport and Environment, 23 Mar 2023) Chancellor Scholz’s support for e-fuel will hit motorists in the pocket while driving up carbon emissions, oil consumption and air pollution.
Olaf Scholz’s support for e-fuels in new cars could leave the average German driver paying €210 to fill up their tank, new analysis shows. The German Chancellor is in a stand-off with the EU over his insistence that cars powered by e-fuel are allowed to be sold after a 2035 phase-out date for combustion engines. The exorbitant cost would mean only wealthy drivers could afford synthetic fuel – while pushing some drivers who purchase combustion engines certified as running on e-fuels to circumvent the rules and buy fossil petrol instead.
E-petrol could cost more than €2.80 per litre at the pump in Germany in 2030 – 50% more expensive than regular petrol today due to the complex and energy intensive production process. This would cost the average driver at least €2,300 a year to fill up their car on synthetic petrol, the analysis by Transport & Environment (T&E) finds.
Alex Keynes, clean vehicles manager at T&E, said: “Chancellor Scholz is threatening to pull the rug from under the European Green Deal for the sake of saving polluting combustion engines. The higher cost of e-fuels will mean that only the wealthy could afford them while everyone else could be pushed into getting around the rules and using fossil petrol instead. Motorists and the climate will be the losers.”
Transport and Environment, 23 Mar 2023: Over €200 to fill up a car – the cost of Germany’s bid to keep combustion engines
