Germany's net-zero plan for old vehicles

Carbon-neutral synthetic fuels for existing internal combustion vehicles can revolutionise the future of transportation

Germany put forward an interesting proposal when the EU was debating legislation to ensure only zero-emission vehicles would be on European roads by 2035. Instead of retiring every internal combustion vehicle in the EU, Germany proposed a switch to carbon-neutral synthetic fuels for existing internal combustion vehicles.

While electric vehicles (and hydrogen-fuel cells) are zero-emission, they are certainly not zero-carbon to make. The mining and refining of lithium, other metals and rare earths, as well as producing the plastic and composite material components used, have big environmental impacts.

Around 90 per cent of the world’s vehicles — some 2 billion — will