eFueladventure
Every drop of fuel CAR has ever burnt liberated the carbon of long-dead plants. Until now. This is our first tank of renewably brewed eFuel, and it might just save the combustion engine
Patagonia is, frankly, a bit much. So affectingly vast and unspoiled is this elemental landscape of infinite steppe and big sky that you find yourself questioning its plausibility. It’s as if the prow of our speeding orange Panamera might at any moment tear into painted canvas and shatter the illusion, Truman Show-style.
The UK doesn’t really do wide open spaces. By contrast Chilean Patagonia sprawls with uncluttered majesty. The emptiness stretch-es to a distant mountain backdrop that, with its solemn peaks wreathed in candyfloss cloud, is so spectacular as to appear unreal – more green-screen CGI construct than raw geography. Were we in a darkened edit room, I’d be leaning over and urging James Cameron to take things back a notch: ‘Jim, mate, sometimes less is more.’
The wind and sun that assault my already tender face feel real, as does the stony ground beneath my now-damp feet. But time and again I’m struggling to process the views, from raging waterfalls cas-cading into lakes of dazzling sapphire to the patches of sunlight that race across these lake-studded plains, transforming the colour pal-ette from muted and drab to vital and vivid as they fly.
With time you begin to accept it. Getting out of the car helps; trading your turbocharged and hybrid-boosted isolation chamber for wind, water and the alarming proximity of some spectacular wildlife: vultures, pumas and the last of the llama-like guanaco. A few hours ago, in sprawling Santiago, the natural world was absent bar a ‘living wall’ outside the airport’s international terminal. Here, that’s inverted. Here, humanity clings on by its fingernails, wind-swept and humbled and unable to muster anything resembling per-manence. And yet we just found the most advanced petrol station on the planet: Porsche’s synthetic-fuel test plant.
The fuel hose feels like any other, though the digital read-out is on the handle, not the pump, and there’s nothing to pay. Just as well. Right now – and likely for a few years to come – CAR’s budget wouldn’t stretch to more than a couple of litres of this stuff. There are no other pumps or customers, just a few technicians in hard hats and rigger boots. And with no shop, the odds of picking up a Snickers Duo appear slim. Shame. After three flights in two days, I’m peckish.
Overhead, the 66ft blades of a Siemens wind turbine move silently, casting surreal and fast-moving shadows across a facility that feels part moon base, part Bond set. The read-out hits 80 litres and, with our range-topping Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid fuelled, it’s decision time: cruise away
