Swiss Startup Says It Can Make Gasoline Out Of Sunlight And CO2
In a world bracing for the electric revolution, the familiar rumble of the internal combustion engine has been sounding more and more like a valve tap. Automakers are phasing out internal combustion engine production, and the future looks, well, eerily silent. Meanwhile, the Swiss just showed up on a Harley running what they claim is "solar gasoline." Besides sounding like a band playing the noon slot at Coachella, solar gasoline is now very much a real thing and surprisingly has very little to do with electricity
The company, Synhelion, claims it has cracked the code on creating a carbon-neutral gasoline replacement using concentrated sunlight, water, and CO2. And this isn't some lab experiment in a beaker. In June 2024, the company fired up DAWN, the world's first industrial-scale solar fuel plant in Jülich, Germany. The idea is to create a fuel that works in your existing car, no modifications needed. Effectively, it's a lifeline for all the gas-powered vehicles still roaming the planet — and planning to keep doing so for a long time. Call it gutsy or far-fetched, but it just might be the Hail Mary that gives gas engines another shot at glory.
How it works
So, how do you bottle sunshine? It sounds like something out of a Saturday morning children's singalong cartoon, but Synhelion's process is a clever bit of thermal engineering. Instead of making electrical power only with solar panels, they use a field of AI calibrated mirrors, called heliostats, to concentrate sunlight onto a central tower. This creates a massive amount of heat, blasting a proprietary receiver to temperatures over 2,700°F. That's hotter than molten lava.
This intense heat is then piped into a thermochemical reactor where it triggers a reaction that breaks down a feedstock — currently biogenic material and water — into a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide known as syngas. The syngas is then converted into a liquid "syncrude." From there, the syncrude goes to a conventional refinery to be processed into perfectly normal, albeit sun-born, gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels. Wild.
To get around the inconvenient truth that the sun sets, the system includes a Thermal Energy Storage (TES) setup that soaks up heat during the day and releases it at night, allowing the plant to run 24/7. Synhelion says that their developed TES system is ten times cheaper than battery storage, while avoiding the reliance on rare materials that go along with high capacity batteries. While other players in the synthetic fuel space may rely on wind, Synhelion is the pioneer of truly solar powered fuel generation at scale.
So, can I fill up my hooptie with sun juice?
This is the billion-dollar question, isn't it? The answer, for now, is "not yet," but the proof of concept is compelling. To prove it, Synhelion has staged some brilliant marketing stunts. First, Professor Aldo Steinfeld, the visionary behind the tech, took the first-ever ride on his personal Harley-Davidson fueled by the stuff. Then, in a move aimed squarely at the hearts of gearheads, the company took a 1985 Audi Sport quattro with solar gasoline up the Furka Pass, explicitly noting no modifications were made to its legendary five-cylinder engine.
This isn't about replacing EVs though. Synhelion is targeting the fleet of existing cars, trucks, and classic vehicles. The goal is to offer a way to help greenify the cars we already own, providing a sustainable path forward. It's a pragmatic approach that acknowledges the world won't go electric overnight — despite what California thinks.
Before you start dreaming of a guilt-free V8, let's pump the brakes. While the tech is definitely fascinating, Synhelion faces a road steeper than Pikes Peak. The biggest obstacles are, unsurprisingly, cost and scale. While the company aims to get the price lower, synthetic fuels are dependent on carbon taxes or government subsidies to compete in the current market. The DAWN plant is also a proof of concept, producing just a few thousand gallons a year. With construction starting on a larger, production-focused facility in 2025 and an operational target set for 2027, Synhelion is limited by its current output.
For now, solar gasoline is more science fair than Shell station. But if it ever scales, it could let us have our horsepower and burn it too.
