E-fuels: how big a niche can they carve out for cars?

Sections of industry back synthetic alternatives to fossil fuels, but case is much stronger for aviation

Most bright red sports cars do not make much of their green credentials. Yet a test run in Bicester, Oxfordshire, by the startup Zero Petroleum last month gave a glimpse of a future in which combustion engines did not add new carbon to the atmosphere. The car was running on e-fuel: petrol made using electricity, hydrogen from water, and carbon captured from the air.

The automotive industry is steadily moving away from fossil fuels, and a firm global consensus has emerged that battery electric vehicles are the way forward. Yet that consensus took a knock in March when the EU - to the shock of energy experts, environmental campaigners and much of the car industry - opened a small back door to e-fuels.