What are Flex Fuel Vehicles (FFV) ? These vehicles run on E85, which is short for 85% ethanol 15% gasoline and can also run on regular gasoline, there are already a few million of them in America. They are essentially the same as the gasoline cars we drive today, they just offer the option to use a different fuel mixture.
Why the fuss ? Well, the ethanol can be created locally from products like sugar cane, wheat, corn and wood, not middle eastern oil. Brazilians already faced the problem of middle eastern oil dependency over 10 years ago and decided to use their own oversupply of sugar cane to make the ethanol. They now use these flex fuel vehicles (FFV) as commonly as we use our gasoline cars and are essentially independent of world oil price gauging and in the process strengthened their own farming industry by using their own sugar cane and the E85 even produces less green house gases.
North Americans have an oversupply of wheat and wood to make their own ethanol and this too would benefit local farmers and reduce dependency on foreign oil. Local ethanol producing companies are now seeing increased investing as demand exceeds supply. These companies and flex fuel cars also have bi partisan support politically, so you can expect even more support for the ethanol producing companies and FFV advocacy (only oil and gas funded politicians oppose such development)
GM has acknowledged this as a viable North American solution for our gas woes (and their sagging sales-see below) and is developing the upgrades necessary to convert their larger cars to FFV. Apparently it cost them about $250 to upgrade the larger pricier cars to FFV, which makes more sense with higher profit margin luxury cars where $250 is less of an issue to deter buyers.
Toyota is hot on their heels to catch up with this technology but faces an uphill battle as its price conscious smaller cars with lower profit margins cannot absorb the extra $250 as easily. (Personally I can't wait to buy a flex fuel Prius)
Who would of imagined GM as a leader in producing a greener car for north Americans! Their motivation is driven by poor sales of larger fuel in-efficient cars due to high gas prices of course. I guess this is one benefit of high gas prices.
While this is a promising solution to our gas woes more research is needed as some oil and gas lackeys argue its too expensive to produce the ethanol, which seems odd, seeing as cash starved Brazil can make it work after politicians committed to it. There will no doubt be increased efficiencies in ethanol production and lower cost of production with private and public sector support of these companies. With no disrespect to Brazil, if they can do, so should we.
Paul Fezziwig writes for and administers Green Cars Now
http://www.greencarsnow.com, a website devoted to promoting fuel efficient vehicles and hybrid cars.
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