It is not a simple question, I consider that it depends on the situation you are located, and the source you use to produce electricity. If you can get electricity from renowable sources, electric car is better, biofiel cars always will produce some contamination to the environment.

But, it you consume electricity from fuel sources, then, there is not difference, you are contaminating anyway.

After this, there are other issues against biofuels. If they are obtained from non-sustainable plantations or from distroyed ecosystems, it would be better not to promove them.

But, if they are obtained from recycled oils or from sustainable plantations that are providing other eco or social services, or if the car is designed to work over places where electricity is still not available, we should consider them as good alternatives.

It is not a simple question, I consider that it depends on the situation you are located, and the source you use to produce electricity. If you can get electricity from renowable sources, electric car is better, biofiel cars always will produce some contamination to the environment.

But, it you consume electricity from fuel sources, then, there is not difference, you are contaminating anyway.

After this, there are other issues against biofuels. If they are obtained from non-sustainable plantations or from distroyed ecosystems, it would be better not to promove them.

But, if they are obtained from recycled oils or from sustainable plantations that are providing other eco or social services, or if the car is designed to work over places where electricity is still not available, we should consider them as good alternatives.

As per the current scenario, it is not an "OR" question.

This is what I think so far:

Electric cars is a long-term alternative to fossil fuels:

Biofuel cars could be short-term alternative to fossil fuels:

The long term solution is mainly cycling, walking, public transport, car sharing and pooling, compact cities... and light cars. Cars are more and more heavy, especially in the US, consuming more and more energy.

Sincerely

Frédéric

For electricity driven cars the resource of energy battery and the fuel is not renewable in most cases. Now on earth most of the engines of cars are made for liquid fuels. Therefore, to go for electric cars, you need to change all the engines of these cars. But if you go for biofuels, a minimum modification will be required to run the engine. Great researches are going on throughout the world on biofuel and we can hope that biofuel of better quality will be made very soon which can be used as a pure fuel, that is B100, in existing engines some days.

That is exactly what I think Rachan Karmakar .

Thank you #Dr. Jaime Moreno-García

Any other opinion?

We were having this discussion just yesterday in our lab. The infrastructure does not yet exist to use electric cars for long distances so the only current solution is to use hybrids. Electric cars are good for commutes when combined with renewable energy. They may be more practical in the future, especially if you can reduce the recharge time or make it fast and easy to change out the battery for a charged one. Ultimately the future probably will be with something other than personal transportation. That could be public transit, some form of ride sharing, or self driving transport that would be shared.

I agree with Mohamed Azab and with Jaime Moreno-García and I would like to highlight some aspects about the EV that were not discussed before:

1) Engine efficiency is from 90 to 98%.

2) Energy transportation to the charging docks has a really low cost, and we can use the existing electrical grid.

I assume this energy will be generated by greener sources every day, otherwise the problem will still remain.

In developing countries this may not be so easy (lack of electrical grid and infrastructures), so that is why I am also considering Bio fuel for this present.

If we compare with the combustion engine, his performance is about 30-45% (the rest is just heat). We have the complexity of creation, the lack of open competition at manufacturing and the parts wearing due to normal usage. Also we need the distribution network, which is the same than the actual oil station network but has the same problem of distribution costs and infrastructures.

As Jaime said, I also think that the problem about competing with food crops is already solved, and we would be able close the C02 cycle.

There are more challenges to address when we speak about EVs, but in my opinion, these are just about changing the actual industry and have more to do with economical and political issues. When we look just at the technical side, EVs are the future.

Why is then so slow its adoption? In my opinion I find two major causes:

One is the actual car manufacturers, who own all the combustion engine patents, they are the only ones who know how to, and are homologated to build these engines. They want to get benefit from their research as longer as possible (even when they already have really good EVs, the transition must be economically worth for them).

The second, is about batteries, manufacturers and waste handling. The biggest lithium batteries manufacturer is BYD (chinese) https://bit.ly/2BI13Po , and the EU doesn't want to buy batteries and buy cars, they want their own production. Also we will have a huge waste management problem because at this moment the costs of recycling a lithium battery are x3 the costs of producing a new one, and manufacturers like Tesla are removing expensive materials like Cobalt that were worth to recycle, making the business less attractive.

So to sum up, and like some of you stated, Bio Fuels are a quick solution for today and longer time in developing countries, and EVs are the medium and long time solution.

Electric cars may be powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Biomass may be converted into hydrogen by solar pyrolysis. Thus biomass may be converted by pyrolysis to biofuel or hydrogen. The below mentioned article includes comprehensive disscusion. Best wishes.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325803601_Biomass_pyrolysis_past_present_and_future?_sg=-382_N4W3VUyUBV64PU0xeeXHTFN3qAK2tkLm3Y9f4Vo3v9vXS_fTuz8Ka39P3nxVcMRbdl5LwdmxX2o6jlZGJHK6RNY9x9kExpmOFTj.WMTMGofFkNlC6EOR6VW6NGavLSWhALAvBDZ_j4ZnPyVi8WC_a7aLTZFhB36IixvN9x5CVfTUK6cvKZUO8-eHdA

@Tamer Ya Fahmy please correct me if I am wrong. As far as I know, hydrogen fuel cells use a renewable source as it is the hydrogen molecule plus air to provide electricity. The residue will be just water and no carbon. I am just concern about three points: 1) is the technology already implanted to be widely used in few years from now? 2) will the cars be more expensive than those driven by diesel/gasoline and 3) how will the risk of explotion be handled in cars and gas stations?

I agree that an increase in biofuel driven cars is an immediate alternative that could mitigate the dependence on fossil fuel consumption/use while electric cars are a long term, developing solution.

Because liquid biofuels are able to be mixed with current fossil fuels up to a certain percentage and readily used in current car engines, the minimal modifications needed to develop this strategy is ideal for countries in the world that are hesitant or unable to invest in large changes. For electric driven cars to completely dominate the transportation sector, there must be drastic changes not only to the engine themselves but to gas stations converted into charging stations, etc. Infrastructure for electric cars is lacking as many before have mentioned and I think that it is especially important to consider comments by Rachan Karmakar and @jose luis moreno that currently, not all parts of electric cars such as lithium in batteries nor perhaps the source of electricity itself are completely sustainable nor environmentally friendly.

With this, I think that the use in electric or biofuel cars will vary depending on country and while research and development are in place to address the current problems there will be more growth in the use of both cars or hybrids to curve our dependence on fossil fuels today.

Dear Mr. Jaime Moreno-García ,in the next few years, electric cars will definitely be of use.

I.P.Artaya

Dear Artaya,

please, I would appreciate some arguments.

Thank you very much.

It depends on many factors and in many cases it won't be 'either' 'or' but integrating both. In tropical countries such as here in Fiji issues are different than in temperate ones. Important parameters are also the technological standards as well as the structure of energy consumption and production.

https://www.usp.ac.fj/index.php?id=22667