The Right Drive - Opinion From Ernst Prost

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Opinion From Ernst Prost
Managing Director
Liqui Moly

Ladies and gentlemen.

Did the Stone Age end because there where no more stones? I don't think so, and the Bronze Age didn't end because there was no Bronze, but because there was something better. The combustion engine will also die out, not because our oil and gasoline supplies are running out but because better technology will be available. Maybe the electric motor, hydrogen or highly optimized diesel and gasoline engines that run on synthetic fuels and are more environmentally friendly than any electric motor? Keyword: Ecobalance.

When I think back to my time as a car mechanic, you could significantly lower the exhaust values with just a few turns of the adjusting screws, for example on the gas carburettor, the fuel injection pump or at the valve control. In my opinion, our conventional diesel and gasoline engines are far from being technologically exhausted, there is still something which can be done. The decisive factor is the ecological balance sheet of an engine, including the manufacturing costs and environmental impact associated with battery production.

Here I would like to express my doubts about the economies and environmental friendliness of electric motors, especially when you evaluate the overall ecological footprint. Why not conduct research with an open mind? - In every direction. Optimizing the old sometimes brings more benefit than trying to force the new into existence with a crowbar. Especially in the frowned upon diesel engines there are still enormous development reserves that can make this type of engine not only economical but also environmentally friendly.

When I see the drastic improvements we are achieving solely through the use of modern oils and our additives, I dare to predict that the combustion engine has lost the race against the electric motor, politics and the economy just have to give the developers & engineers the chance and the opportunity. This is also about jobs in the current industry and not just about new jobs on the graves of the old ones.

The consumer should be involved, in a study we recently commissioned, the overwhelming majority of customers are in favor of the combustion engine, with good reason. The diesel engine in particular with its already low CO2 emissions in conjunction with efficient exhaust gas purification systems could help educe pollutant emissions overall in line with the European environmental protection targets.

The use of solar energy to produce hydrogen for fuel cells or synthetic fuels in an environmentally friendly way has long since ceased to be a vision, but is technically feasible today without batteries and without the necessary over exploitation of raw materials. In any case, it sounds better than the electricity for pseudo environmentally friendly electric cars produced in obsolete coal power plants, which we are keeping alive artificially until 2038 with billions of taxpayers' money, or producing it in contaminated nuclear power plants.

In the long term, it will probably come down to this if we want to achieve less pollution and more climate protection with full mobility: A mix of different and diverse technologies, not an imposed mono culture for the country of inventors and developers. With good reason.

The diesel in particular, with its already lower CO2 emissions in conjunction with efficient exhaust gas purification, could help to reduce pollutant emissions overall in line with European environmental protection targets. It has long since ceased to be a vision, but is now technically feasible to use solar energy to produce hydrogen for fuel cells or synthetic fuels in an environmentally friendly way in order to operate engines. Without batteries and without the necessary over-exploitation of raw materials.

In any case, it sounds better than the electricity for pseudo environmentally friendly electric cars in obsolete lignite plants, which we are keeping alive artificially until 2038 with many billions of taxpayers' money, or producing it in contaminated nuclear power plants. And in the long term, it will probably come down to this if we want to achieve less pollution and more climate protection with full mobility: A mix of different and diverse technologies. But not an imposed monoculture for the country of inventors and developers.