I think the other tradeoff over the long run is long-run lifetime costs of replacing "solar panels, and the wiring, fuses, breaker box, charge controller" under the assumption that these aspects do have lifetime costs and are at best rebuildable and at worst produce waste (e.g. think about how Vaclav Smil calls wind turbines 'the perfect embodiment of fossil fuels' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkj_91IJVBk&feature=youtu.be... ).
It's important to ask these questions of what the tradeoffs really are when thinking about Energy Returned on Energy Invested, whether e-fuels would actually decrease new car production (i.e. older cars get used longer if e-fuels really make sense), the political economy ramifications if these things really worked, etc.
Finally, it's really worth pointing out the concern of any of these things falling under solutionism when also thinking about the state of our planet from a more integrated framework such as the planetary boundaries: https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-bound...
It's important to ask these questions of what the tradeoffs really are when thinking about Energy Returned on Energy Invested, whether e-fuels would actually decrease new car production (i.e. older cars get used longer if e-fuels really make sense), the political economy ramifications if these things really worked, etc.
In prior waves of interest of things like algae-based fuels (see https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/lessons-from-th... ), my rough understanding is that they could be done but the numbers just didn't work out.
Finally, it's really worth pointing out the concern of any of these things falling under solutionism when also thinking about the state of our planet from a more integrated framework such as the planetary boundaries: https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-bound...