A few weeks ago, Carlos Tavares, the boss of the Stellantis group, was not too enthusiastic about the future of synthetic fuels.

According to him, EU approval of e-fuels will not greatly change the trajectory of the automotive industry today.

“We are on the way to the electrification expected by the EU”– said Carlos Tavares at the first Stellantis Forum “Freedom of Mobility”, which took place in March last year.

“I think e-fuel will be another technological area that will develop”Carlos Tavares said. “This industry will have to demonstrate that it is truly carbon neutral, from carbon ‘capture’ on the one hand to engine emissions on the other.”

While we remain steadfast in the execution of our aggression #electrification strategies, #Stellantis completes eFuel testing on 28 European vehicle engine families to support decarbonisation of on-road combustion engine fleet: https://t.co/ooKw6vI75F pic.twitter.com/MwAwBXmMJT

—Stellantis (@Stellantis) April 20, 2023

Several gasoline and diesel engines were tested

However, that doesn’t stop the Franco-Italian-American group from working on that energy. In effect, Stellantis has just announced several synthetic fuel tests in recent weeks. Thus, 28 engine families have been tested with this energy in recent months. These are Euro 6 diesel units and gasoline engines produced since 2014.

In this way, the engineers were able to observe several elements, starting from the emissions of exhaust gases, their starting power at different temperatures, their power, the reliability of the components or even the interaction with the lubricant and filters.

According to the group, “Synthetic fuels will be a key part of the tools that can be used to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the coming years. »

Extend the service life of cars on the road

Stellantis doesn’t reveal the types of engines tested or their number, but we can assume they are the Fire gasoline engines that are equipped with certain Fiat models, the famous PureTech from PSA and several diesels that have already been tested.

If these engines pass these tests, they could be “approved” to use synthetic fuel, thus extending the life of cars currently in circulation. According to Stellantis, this applies to approximately 28 million vehicles in the group.

“We are redoubling our efforts to combat global warming by testing carbon neutral fuels as complementary solutions to strengthen our overall approach to decarbonisation. While remaining committed to our electrification strategy, we must at the same time find smart solutions to reduce CO2 emissions.₂ of the 1.3 billion existing internal combustion vehicles”Carlos Tavares said.

“By making Stellantis engines compatible with e-Fuels, we offer our customers a new tool in the fight against global warming that has potential impact in the very short term. This action is in line with our commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2038.”