MUNICH: Amid a tense debate in Europe as to whether cars running on e-fuels are a viable alternative to electric mobility, motorcycle testers have shown that they can squeeze more power and distance out of a motorbike running on an e-fuel than with petrol.
"The result speaks for e-fuels: power and torque improved marginally," said testers for German-language magazine Motorrad, who tried out a BMW R 1250 GS on 50 litres of e-fuel.
Proponents said e-fuels do not release additional CO2 and would be carbon neutral in the entire balance, since they can be produced with the help of electricity from renewable energy sources, water and CO2 from the air.
The EU is working towards banning the sale of cars with combustion engines in 2035, but the car-friendly FDP party of Germany's coalition government is pushing to have e-fuel vehicles exempted from the ban.
Sceptics and environmentalist groups said the vast amount of electricity required to produce e-fuels, if even carbon neutral, could be used to power a far greater number of battery-electric cars.
In terms of performance, however, this controversial alternative to petrol appears to be superior.
"E-fuel is not only 'harmless' in terms of consumption as well as power and torque, but - to a minimal extent - beneficial."
The meticulous test included riding the BMWs on a country road at a brisk pace, constant highway riding, highway at full throttle and uphill alternating with downhill stretches.
Tester Jens Möller-Töllner said he swapped machines several times during the tour and emptied the tanks to the last drop.
At the end of the test day, the e-fuelled bike achieved a consumption of 5.93 litres over 100km compared to 6.08 litres for a machine using regular 98 octane super fuel. Results were similar using 95 octane petrol. The savings increased over a distance of 305km.
The figures show a saving of 2.5% in consumption for the e-fuelled bike. That test mule also produced almost one horsepower more power at the wheel, testers said, cautioning that the potential fuel saving was "only a tendency."
The e-fuel even smelled more pleasant, according to the magazine, because despite chemically identical composition, the synthetic fuel is free of impurities like long-chain hydrocarbons.
