A pan-European road trip featuring cars and trucks powered by renewable fuels logged 77,500 kilometres across 16 countries in a real-world demonstration that these fuels deliver significant greenhouse-gas (GHG) reductions and should be a part of the EU drive to decarbonise transport.
The three-month project crossed the finishing line in Brussels today with two days of events in the European Parliament and the Autoworld museum, where policymakers and stakeholders from the EU automotive value chain and renewable fuels sectors are meeting to discuss the best way forward for decarbonising road transport.
The GHG savings from the Tour d’Europe were certified using a software tool, a ‘digital fuel twin’ (DFT), that verified the use of renewable fuels and the resulting reductions in CO2 emissions.
The collected data were then analysed by the Technical University of Darmstadt and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and summarised into a report, which concludes that renewable fuels have a “simple and genuinely feasible CO2 savings potential as of today, with actual and verifiable CO2 reduction of up to 77 percent on a well-to-wheel basis”. The report furthermore makes it clear that the EU approach should be technologically open and better utilise renewable fuels, which are already available across Europe and fully compatible with today’s vehicle technology and fuelling infrastructure.
The vehicles – 11 cars and 5 trucks – travelled 77,500 km along five different routes throughout Europe. They refuelled 289 times with a variety of renewable fuels: HVO and B100 to power diesel engines, E85 and renewable gasoline to power petrol and hybrid engines, BioLNG for trucks running on gaseous fuels, and different blends when no 100 percent renewable fuel specification was available.
The report shows that renewable fuels offer an immediate, flexible, and technology-open pathway to decarbonising road transport - complementing solutions like electrification and hydrogen.
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