Porsche 911 future secure

Porsche is delivering on its promise to ensure traditional combustion engines in the iconic Porsche 911 and other sports cars never die by investing in the world’s first climate-neutral e-fuel refinery, dubbed the Haru Oni project.

The refinery is expected to begin pumping out low-emission e-fuels by 2022, helping the German car-maker future-proof its famous ‘boxer’ combustion engines and ensure the Porsche 911 will continue in its current form for generations to come.

As part of a pilot project with Europe’s largest industrial manufacturer Siemens, Porsche is investing €20 million ($A32.3m) into the project based in Chile that will supply fuel for its race cars and eventually road cars.

In September last year, Porsche’s head of development for boxer engines, Markus Baumann, told carsales that the car-maker was already testing vehicles running on synthetic e-fuels.

Porsche now has support for the Haru Oni project from both the public and private sector, including investment from the energy industry and the German energy ministry.

“It’s a better way than electric cars because the problem with the batteries … We will have a problem with resources and raw materials,” said Baumann, highlighting how rare-earth materials are required to make energy-dense lithium-ion batteries.

Porsche currently has an electric vehicle in the form of the all-new Porsche Taycan which launches in Australia early in 2021, but it’s clear the brand doesn’t want to simply rely on one alternative fuel or energy source.

There is no word yet on how much the new e-fuel will cost, but it’s unlikely to be cheap.

Porsche is calling the new e-fuel refinery the world’s first integrated commercial plant for producing climate-neutral fuel.

The high-tech factory will use wind turbines to produce green hydrogen, which will then be converted into synthetic fuel for combustion engines.

The fuel is essentially a synthetic methanol blend, or “renewable methanol” as Porsche calls it, which “can be converted into climate-friendly fuel using an MTG (Methanol To Gasoline) technology to be licensed and supported by ExxonMobil”.

Porsche has confirmed it will be the e-fuel’s primary user which will kick off with “beacon projects”. That’s Porsche-speak for something fast and showy – most likely a concept car to begin with.

It will then roll out the fuel for motorsport applications and eventually for “serial production sports cars”, according to a press statement.

The car-maker claims around 130,000 litres of e-fuels will be “produced as early as 2022” during the pilot phase.

“We already have the entire infrastructure to supply all cars with a liquid fuel,” stated Baumann.

“I think there is a way [to do it]. It’s a matter for the politicians to see which kind of mobility they push.”

The new e-fuel facility is projected to pump out 55 million litres of e-fuel per annum by 2024 and around 550 million litres per year by 2026.

Porsche CEO Oliver Blume said that while electromobility was “top priority” for the brand, “e-fuels for cars are a worthwhile complement to that – if they’re produced in parts of the world where a surplus of sustainable energy is available”.

“They are an additional element on the road to decarbonisation,” he said.

“Our involvement in the world’s first commercial, integrated e-fuels plant supports the development of the alternative fuels of the future.”