Before E20 reaches a German pump, Brussels has to rewrite a 1998 directive
Germany’s federal transport minister, Steffen Bilger, wants E20 petrol on sale beside E10, he tells the Augsburger Allgemeine. The blend allows up to 20 percent bioethanol, double today’s legal limit, and Bilger says he is working on it with his French counterpart. For now the fuel runs only in a closed fleet test in Mannheim, and no German driver can buy it.
E10 took just 28.6 percent of German petrol sales in 2025
Super E10 accounted for 28.6 percent of the petrol sold in Germany in 2025, up from 27.5 percent a year earlier, according to the bioethanol association BDBe. Super E5 still took almost 66 percent, although E10 has been on German forecourts since 2011. France shows the other outcome: SP95-E10 made up 60.8 percent of French petrol sales in 2025, and around 70 percent of French stations sell it. In Belgium, 95 E10 is simply the standard petrol at the pump. The obstacle Bilger faces at home is not chemistry. It is a driver who still reaches for the E5 nozzle out of habit.
EU Fuel Quality Directive 98/70/EC caps ethanol at 10 percent
Directive 98/70/EC, the EU’s Fuel Quality Directive, limits ethanol in petrol to 10 percent by volume, and Germany’s fuel ordinance follows the EN 228 standard built on that limit. No member state can put E20 on general sale alone. The European standards body CEN has already written the fuel’s rulebook, CEN/TS 18227 from 2025, covering blends of up to 20 percent ethanol, but it only gains legal force once the directive changes. In April 2026 Commission president Ursula von der Leyen told German MEPs that Brussels “will consider” authorising E20, with an eye on engines in existing cars. That is a promise to study the question, not a proposal with a date.
Mannheim’s E20 fleet trial and the E10 compatibility question
E20 is so far tested only in a closed fleet trial in Mannheim, which ordinary drivers cannot join, according to the German motoring club ADAC. The rival club AvD says cars approved by their maker for E10 without restrictions, and fitted with modern fuel systems, could technically run on E20. That is not blanket approval. The CEN specification itself warns that E20 may not suit every vehicle and tells owners to follow the manufacturer’s advice, which points to another compatibility list, model by model, before the first public pump opens.
India’s 2025 switch to E20 cost drivers 3 to 5 percent
India moved its pumps to E20 in 2025, and its petroleum ministry now concedes that fuel economy can fall by 3 to 5 percent in some cars. Maruti Suzuki puts the energy shortfall of E20 against E10 at around 3 to 3.5 percent, because ethanol carries less energy per litre than petrol. Owner surveys reported far bigger losses, and the backlash spilled into street protests. For a European driver the arithmetic is simple: E20 only saves money if it sells for about 3 percent less per litre than E10, and pump prices already differ by more than that between neighbouring countries.
Bilger ties E20 to petrol and hybrid sales after 2035
Bilger calls the combustion-engine ban in its current form a mistake, and higher blends are part of the German and French case for selling petrol and hybrid cars after 2035. The Commission proposed in December 2025 to allow new combustion cars to be registered after that date, and Parliament and member states still have to agree. Berlin is pressing the same point on plug-in hybrids, where German carmakers want today’s CO2 rules frozen. Ethanol, farming, automotive and fuel groups asked Brussels in June 2026 to lift the cap from 10 to 20 percent.
AutoNext Take
E20 is a sensible idea arriving in the wrong order. Germany is asking for a stronger blend while almost two thirds of its petrol buyers still pick E5 over E10, and France, where E10 outsells everything else at the pump, is the proof that drivers accept ethanol once the pump makes it normal. A fuel that carries about 3 percent less energy than E10 has to win on price and on trust, and Germany has not yet won either with the blend it already sells.
No German forecourt will sell E20 to the public before 2028, because the Fuel Quality Directive has to be amended first and Brussels has not yet tabled a proposal. The earlier signal is the E10 figure: if BDBe’s 2026 data, due in spring 2027, shows E10 above 30 percent of German petrol sales, Bilger will have the drivers he needs by the time the law catches up.
Extracted in full from: https://www.autonext.co/news/germany-e20-petrol-e10-bilger
