23 March 2026
Can You Drive A Car Fuelled Using Only Sustainable Firewood?
With the price of natural gas and petrol surging over the past few months, people have been looking elsewhere to heat their homes and power their cars.
The ideal solution for the former is to use sustainable firewood instead; it is not as susceptible to the circumstances that have caused gas prices to increase, and the result is both more affordable and remarkably cosy.
However, some have wondered whether it is possible to use firewood as a solid fuel to power a car. Technically speaking, it is possible, as multiple attempts across the last century prove, but whether wood-fuelled cars should be legitimately considered is a much more difficult question.
How they worked is that the cars in question were fitted with a special wood-burning stove known as a gasifier. This would be filled with wood, lit on fire and would feed a synthetic gas into the engine instead of petrol. No alternative secondary fuel is needed for the ignition.
The first ever attempt was in 1905, but they became popular following the First World War, as shortages of fuel and natural gas meant that motorists became desperate to find alternatives.
In the 1920s, wood-powered car development was at its apex, but this quickly revealed why the vehicle you load up with firewood today is not powered by the same wood.
It takes a very long time to get going; whilst a typical car ignition takes a few seconds before the engine starts, a wood-powered car can take up to ten minutes to light up.
It also takes a lot of wood; a modern example takes up to 40kg of wood per 100km, and they tend to be much slower due to lower efficiency and the weight of the wood itself.
Finally, they are particularly complicated, with one owner of a wood-powered car claiming that the only person who can drive it is the person who made it.
