Synthetic fuels remain permitted: are e-fuels a chance?

According to the plans of the EU environment ministers, new cars with combustion engines should remain permitted after 2035 if they use e-fuels. What can the technology do?

Wien. The EU environment ministers struggled for a long time until they found a surprising compromise at 3 a.m.: New cars with internal combustion engines are to be banned in the EU from 2035, but drives with synthetic fuels remain permitted.

The exception for these so-called e-fuels was made at the insistence of Germany and other countries. For some, this exception is a step backwards, for others it is an opportunity to get the existing fleet climate-neutral as quickly as possible. What are e-fuels and what can they do?