Audi Now Makes Its Own Diesel

Published on April 21, 2015 in News by Frédérick Boucher-Gaulin

It seems that Audi is working on cleaning up the rap sheet of the most polluting car fuel. After building a research center for e-diesel (a renewable resource created artificially) last November, the Ingolstadt firm has announced that the very first batch of their green diesel (though it’s not green coloured) has been produced.

The whole process is not exactly simple, but roughly speaking, the facility collects air filled with CO2 and injects it with hydrogen that comes from the electrolysis of water (the electricity needed comes from windmills or solar panels). This produces a substance with the same properties as crude oil, which is then refined to create a diesel-like fluid.

The benefits from this new fuel are obvious: not only is it created while cleaning up the air, but it doesn’t pollute as it is brewed.

Those first few litres of e-diesel were used wisely; Germany’s minister of Education and Research, Johanna Wanka, filled her Audi A8 TDI with it.