There is no shortage of speculation when it comes to what will
power our vehicles in a more eco-friendly future. But the truth
is that we don’t know what it will be, nobody knows, and nobody
will for some time. Electric cars still suffer from many of the
same drawbacks that put companies like Detroit Electric out of
business in 1938, corn-based ethanol takes land away from food
production, algae fuel can’t be produced efficiently, and oil is
just plain going to run out. So the future of transportation is
still open to anyone who can make their technology viable before
everyone else does. Audi, and their new partner Joule, think
they might have the answer. What they plan on producing is a
variety of what they call e-fuels, such as e-gas and e-diesel.
These are made by combining hydrogen extracted from water via
electrolysis with CO2 that comes from processing organic waste.
This method synthesizes methane, and since the infrastructure
and technology for powering cars with natural gas already
exists, Audi belie