MILAN (Reuters) – Stellantis estimates that we will still see combustion engine vehicles on the roads until 2050, requiring the reduction of carbon emissions from the existing fleet until it is eventually replaced by 100 models % electric.

The third car manufacturer by turnover announced this week that following tests conducted with the Saudi oil giant Aramco, 24 types of petrol and diesel engines produced since 2014 in Europe, i.e. 28 million vehicles in circulation , could use Aramco’s synthetic substitute fuels without modification.

Stellantis has reaffirmed its commitment to sell only electric vehicles from 2030, but the European Union has excluded from the ban on thermal engines by 2035 vehicles running on “e-fuels”, which are more virtuous in CO2 term.

Christian Müller, Stellantis senior vice president in charge of propulsion systems for the EMEA region, indicated on Thursday that many of the combustion engine vehicles that the group with 14 brands will have sold between now and 2030 will still be on the road in the beyond the next two decades.

“We really need to take care of our stock fleet,” he said, adding that the length of car lifecycles made the development of synthetic fuels, produced from renewable energy, even more important.

“I think 25% of our vehicles are still in use after 20 years. So that kind of exposure to e-fuels is considerable,” he continued.

For their detractors, synthetic fuels are not a viable alternative due to their low availability and high cost. According to Stellantis and Aramco, this situation could be corrected in part thanks to advantageous European taxation, without further details.

Amer Amer, director of transportation technology at Aramco, said he expects production of synthetic fuels to begin in early 2025 at the group’s two demonstration sites in Saudi Arabia and Spain.

(Giulio Piovaccari, Gilles Guillaume for the )

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