You can wreck your car if you put such fuel in it

Just as we don’t all like beets or corn, our cars are also picky: they don’t run on all the fuel available at gas stations. Although filling stations offer an increasing variety of products, it doesn’t hurt to check information found in the vehicle’s owner’s manual and on the fuel cap, as currently only a small proportion of cars are suitable for alternative propulsion warns the Institute of Transport Sciences.

Alternative fuels for cars are coming

The raw materials of fuels available at gas stations are now quite diverse, including used ones they are produced from cooking oil, plants (such as the aforementioned beets and corn), wood waste, sewage sludge and even manure such things. At the same time, processes are being developed that will also make fuel from plastic waste.

The reason for this is that the climate-damaging carbon dioxide emissions of the transport sector must be reduced. Not only by switching to electric propulsion, but by taking advantage of all the available options – including the current fleet and vehicles with a large number of internal combustion engines. Therefore, research and industry have been working full steam ahead for years with a reduced CO₂ content, even ideally carbon neutral fuels production.

New fuels are not always kind to the car

When the usual 95 petrol was first replaced by the product diluted with alcohol, several car organizations started to sound the alarm because of its harmful effects, i.e. that over time “eats” the rubber seals and lines of the fuel system, and rusts steel and aluminum parts in fuel tanks, carburettors and injection systems.

Understandably, there was a sudden surge in demand for 98 and 100 octane fuels, which are significantly more expensive than regular super gasoline.

In addition, alcohol dissolves the dirt deposited in the lines, which can then cause blockages and thus starting difficulties or engine stalling. Not least because of alcohol the deterioration process of gasoline can be acceleratedso if it is not used continuously from the tank, after a few months a smelly, jelly-like substance will form, which can only be removed by a mechanic using a lengthy and especially expensive process. After the turn of the millennium, most car manufacturers switched to using alcohol-resistant materials, so only earlier cars are exposed to this danger.

HVO dominates among fuels

Among the new types of fuel coming from the development laboratories to gas stations HVO made from hydrogenated vegetable oil is the most promising, which can be sold in the European Union from May 2024. It is already distributed in its pure form at 2,250 filling stations and at more than 11,000 other locations similar to biodiesel as a mixture. It has already spread in neighboring Austria, but also in Italy, the Netherlands and Scandinavia, and it has just been approved in Germany.

So let’s see what fuels can be found on the well pillars:

• Super E5 – in the 95 gasoline, bioethanol could be mixed in a maximum proportion of 5 percent,
• Super E10 – this is 95 gasoline with a double bioethanol ratio,
• Super Plus E5 – this replaced the 98 petrol,
• Diesel B7 – previously the bio-additive in diesel could be no more than 7 percent,
• Diesel B10 – this is a biodiesel mixture increased to 10 percent, similar to gasoline,
• Diesel R33 – here a third of the fuel comes not from petroleum, but from paraffins,
• Klimadiesel 25 – a quarter of the fuel is hydrogenated vegetable oil,
• Klimadiesel 50 – here, by definition, this ratio is 50 percent,
• HVO100 – biofuel made purely from vegetable oil,
• BTL – biomass-to-liquid, i.e. liquid fuel produced from biomass,
• CTL – here biomass is replaced by coal,
• GTL – the same using natural gas,
• XTL – X can denote any energy carrier that is produced in a synthetic production process,
• LNG – liquid natural gas, which mconsists of ethane, ethane and propane,
• CNG – compressed gas from biogas with a high calorie content,
• LPG – a by-product of oil refineries, which is the most common automotive gas,
• E-fuel – fuel made from hydrogen from electrolysis.

To avoid incorrect refuelling in the European Union uniform labeling of different fuel types is required at filling stations, both on the well post and on the filling gun.

If you want to know what else you should pay attention to when driving abroad, in addition to refueling, this article don’t miss it!

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