Volkswagen: No farewell to diesel
DOES IT WORK Volkswagen continues to rely on diesel as an alternative to fully and partially electric vehicles. The company now allows the use of paraffinic fuels for all new four-cylinder models.
These newly developed diesel fuels with proportions of bio-components enable significant CO2 savings of 70 to 95 percent compared with conventional diesel.
All Volkswagen models delivered with four-cylinder diesel engines (TDI) since the end of June this year (calendar week 25/21) have been approved for operation with so-called paraffinic diesel fuels in accordance with European standard EN 15940.
Paraffinic fuels as a supplement
Prof. Thomas Garbe, Head of Gasoline and Diesel Fuels at Volkswagen, explains: "By using the environmentally friendly fuels in the models approved for them, we enable customers throughout Europe to significantly reduce their CO2 emissions as soon as the fuel is available locally. For example, especially for companies with a mixed fleet - consisting of models with e-drives, but also conventional drives - the use of paraffinic fuels is a sensible addition."
e-Fuels from renewable sources
The range of paraffinic fuels is broad: On the one hand, there are fuels produced from biological residues and waste materials such as hydrogenated vegetable oils (hydrotreated vegetable oil or HVO).
These vegetable oils are converted into hydrocarbons by a reaction with hydrogen and mixed with diesel fuel in any quantity. However, they can also be used 100 percent as fuel.
In addition, in the future there will be so-called e-fuels such as PtL (power-to-liquid), which are produced with CO2 and electricity from renewable sources.
Over 70 percent pure e-cars by 2024
At Volkswagen, the share of pure e-cars in sales in Europe is to rise to over 70 percent by 2024. In parallel, the combustion engine fleet will be further developed in the direction of CO2 reduction. The company aims to be completely climate-neutral by 2050.
On the "Way to Zero," Volkswagen plans to reduce emissions per vehicle in Europe by 40 percent by 2030 compared to 2018 levels - that's an average of 17 tons less CO2 per car over its entire life cycle.
