[Skybird]

The interviewed engineer is no nobody, but a famous expert with plenty of credenmtials from practical development work. Amongst others he is the father of the Audi Turbo engine.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:
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"The electric car is a deceptive package"

Friedrich Indra doesn't like the electric car, saying it doesn't protect the climate. Instead, the 82-year-old engine expert is backing more advanced internal combustion engines and synthetic fuels.

You are one of the most ardent advocates of the internal combustion engine. Politicians have decided otherwise, and the course has been set. Isn't it time to abandon opposition to the electric car?

Nothing has been decided yet. Since the diesel scandal, the EU Parliament has wanted to ban the internal combustion engine and tell people what technology they have to drive with in the future. But that won't just be the electric car. Today's e-car product is simply not good enough to overtake the internal combustion engine on a broad scale. Without all the money that car companies earn from combustion cars today, they wouldn't be able to develop e-cars at all.

But the EU directive on fleet emissions stipulates that not a single molecule of CO2 may leave the exhaust of a new car after 2035.

The CO2 directive is due to be updated in 2026. We will see how the registration figures develop by then. At present, e-cars account for 15 percent of new registrations in Germany, or around 400,000 cars per year. This means that in 2030 we will not have 15 million electric cars on the roads as planned, but only about four million.

Do you not see any acceptance of electric cars in society?

It's becoming less and less. Customers cannot be manipulated in the way that politicians believe. It's not democratic for an EU government to tell people: You can only drive electric cars. Even the Chinese allow all technologies. Soon, even the government will have to realize that e-cars cannot be sold at all without massive subsidies.

If you were still in charge of drive development for a major automaker in this situation, what would you do?

The terrible thing is that almost all manufacturers are going along with the electric car; they're only doing it for the shareholders and the politicians. And that's despite the fact that the electric car makes no contribution whatsoever to climate protection. It is a deceptive package. If I were still in charge as a developer, I would go to my boss and say: We need a plan B. And that plan is clear. And this plan is clear: the further development of the combustion engine.

So how do we get away from oil in the transport sector?

The only solution is new fuels and improved combustion engines. The electric car, on the other hand, doesn't help the climate.

Why is that?

The CO2 backpack from battery production is huge.
We have elegantly outsourced this to China. That's where most of the batteries come from, and they're produced with dirty coal-fired electricity. If these batteries are then installed in a European car, the government says that this is a clean drive. Also, of course, the electric car needs electricity, so electricity consumption goes up. There is clean electricity, but it is already completely consumed.

In the long term, however, electricity should become completely green.

An illusion. That will never be the case, certainly not around the world, because you can't store and regulate green electricity. The additional electricity that the electric car needs can only come from calorific power plants. So the electric car runs on coal-fired power. And that's where the government takes it upon itself to claim that it's a clean form of transportation.

But if we in Europe want to stop using fossil fuels by 2045, we need an alternative to oil.

Then the Saudis will produce e-fuels or biofuels for us. E-fuels are now being badmouthed by wishful thinkers because they are supposedly far too expensive. But if they are produced in the right places, things look very different. E-fuels are also energy storage devices, and we absolutely need them when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow for weeks or months at a time.

There are also customers who buy an electric car because it offers direct advantages, for example because it is quiet and produces no emissions locally.

I certainly recognize that. But that's a maximum of 15 percent of the population. These are people who have a garage, mainly the wealthy. For them, the electric car can be a useful addition in the city. But there aren't any number of rich people who can buy a Tesla, and most of them already have one.

As a motor developer, you've always promoted "intelligent simplicity." Wouldn't that fit the electric car exactly?

That's wrong. First of all, I'm glad that people are moving away from the plug-in hybrid. That stands for "stupid complexity," because these cars have everything: combustion engine, electric drive, battery and a lot of weight. The success so far is mainly due to massive promotion. And if you think an electric car consists of just a few components, take a closer look at a battery. It's an incredibly complicated thing, with all the cooling channels. And Tesla, for example, has more than 7,000 of these cells in it. We have to think holistically, and that includes the recycling process, which has not worked so far. An electric car is broken after eight years because the battery is then worn out.

But there are Teslas that last longer than eight years.

But there are also some that are broken after five years.
That depends on how often you charge quickly, for example. The worst thing for the battery is high temperatures. Manufacturers recommend that electric cars not be parked in the blazing sun for long periods of time because the battery then ages more quickly.

Who's to say that technological progress won't lead to much better batteries by 2035?

There is nothing in sight for the next ten years that could replace today's lithium-ion technology. Everything that is being communicated about alternatives is marketing.

Let's talk about hydrogen. It could even be used in the internal combustion engine.

Hydrogen won't work in passenger cars either. Of course it works technically, but it's not practical. Let's also think holistically here, please, and then the filling station is part of it. For the hydrogen to fit into the tank, it has to be compressed to 800 bar. In the process, it heats up and has to be cooled continuously, down to minus 40 degrees Celsius.

What's the difference between an internal combustion engine powered by e-fuels and today's?


Externally, nothing. Formula 1, which will switch to synthetic fuels from 2026, provides a clue. High compression, innovative ignition processes and lean combustion will be used. All of this will also be used in production engines. Unfortunately, such engines are already being developed in China today. It's unbelievable that a country as technologically advanced as Germany is saying: We don't need all that anymore. We must once again achieve technological openness and fight against a planned economy.

We can agree on technological openness right away. But e-fuels are obviously not a solution either because of their inefficient production.

Efficiency depends on where they manufacture these fuels. Of course, it is illusory to produce e-fuels in Europe. You have to get them from the desert or from places like Chile where the wind is always blowing. I'm convinced that major oil companies in Saudi Arabia are already working on these technologies today, partly because they enable energy storage.

So you don't think the electric car will catch on by 2035? The electric car will remain a niche product. Most customers want a car that is fully suitable for everyday use and can be used day and night, even with a surfboard on the roof or a trailer in the back. And it should be able to be sold after ten years. But I don't want to ban anyone from electric cars. I'm technology-neutral, it's just politics that isn't. That's against all common sense.

When you brought the first turbocharged gasoline engine into series production almost 50 years ago, you had many critics who said, "This will never work. Why are you so critical of progress today?

I'm not. It's just a matter of pushing progress in the right direction and not into a dead end. It doesn't just drive me crazy that a single technology is to be prescribed for us. It must be obvious that this is nonsense. It's indefensible, not from the point of view of the climate and not from the point of view of the economy.
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