I once heard that before or during World War II, Ferdinand Porsche was approached by the German armed forces to design a motorcycle sidecar outfit for various tasks. He convinced them that a four-wheeled, though not four-wheel driven, light car based on the VW Beetle would be a better choice and designed the Kubelwagen instead. This is a great shame. Imagine if the man’s genius had been turned to motorcycle design. What an amazing machine would have resulted.

Porsche, the company, although it is part of the VW empire (an interesting reversal, when you think about it), has not forgotten its founder’s taste for unusual—and often genius—approaches to motoring problems.

Porsche has been working quite intensively on electric propulsion for cars, and Porsche executive board member for research and development Michael Steiner has said Porsche is aiming for 80 percent of its new vehicle sales to be fully electric by 2030. But he also insisted that the development of e-fuels was an important extra strategy for the large numbers of traditional vehicles that would continue to be on the road by that time.

Together with Siemens Energy, Porsche and a lineup of international companies are implementing a pilot project in Chile that is expected to yield the world’s first integrated, commercial, industrial-scale plant for making synthetic climate-neutral fuels (e-fuels). In the pilot phase, around 130,000 liters of e-fuels will be produced as early as this year. In two further phases, capacity is then to be increased to about 55 million liters of e-fuels a year by 2024, and around 550 million liters by 2026. Porsche will be the primary customer for the green fuel and will use it in beacon projects. Those include using the e-fuel in vehicles for Porsche motorsports, at the Porsche Experience Centers and possibly also in serial production sports cars.

该项目利用的可用性wind energy in southern Chile and the fuel will allow vehicles with combustion engines, including motorcycles, to be operated almost climate-neutrally.

Porsche has recently increased its stake in e-fuels group HIF Global, which is planning a potential A$1 billion production plant in Australia to make e-fuels, modeled on the plant in southern Chile. Porsche executive board member for procurement Barbara Frenkel said over time there would be extra pressure on petrol from government taxes around the world which would help the take-up of e-fuels. “More and more you can imagine that fossil fuels become more expensive with extra taxes on them,” she said from southern Chile via a video call.

Who knows; Porsche may not only make it possible for us to keep riding our bikes, but may keep it affordable too.