You’ve heard it in the Ford commercials, over and over about them boasting about their flex fuel vehicles. Have you ever noticed that they never took the time to explain What is flex fuel?
As mentioned before in a previous article, flex(ible) fuel vehicles are vehicles which can run on a mix of ethanol and gasoline, with an ethanol content of over 85% of the fuel. Most gasoline stations now sell gasoline mixed with ethanol as their cheapest grade, up to E15, but for high percentage mixes of E85 a vehicle has to be internally modified to work with that gasoline ethanol mix.
Flex fuel vehicles can run on just normal gasoline, or up to E85 fuels. Flex fuel vehicles will not run on mixes above E85 due to the problems that arise with pure ethanol fuels. They will actually get worse mileage on E85 fuels, up to 30% less than a gasoline mix. Currently there are some 25 million vehicles in the world which can run on both gasoline and E85 fuels. In Brazil, over 55% of the vehicles on the road are flex fuel vehicles. Those numbers are due to a strong ethanol production industry in the country and the warm climate which eliminates the problems associated with cold starts in ethanol fueled vehicles.
The only way to identify a flex fuel vehicle is by looking at the back of the vehicle and seeing a Flex Fuel badge, or just recently, all gas caps for vehicles with flex fuel capabilities are now yellow to remind their owners of their vehicle type.
Flex fuel is gaining steam in North America and the world but faces major work when it comes to it’s pricing and distribution channels. For instance, the number of flex fuel gas stations which offer E85 fuels in Canada in 2008 was 3. In the United States that number is bit over 2700 stations as of May of 2011, still trivial compared to the number of regular stations in the United States.
The American government has been pushing to expand the usage of flex fuel vehicles in the United States as a way to cut down it’s dependance of foreign oil. Arguing that every mile driven on ethanol is one less that would have been driven on petroleum, even if you could’ve drove 2 miles in a gasoline car. Until that major point is settled, E85 fuels will continue to struggle to expand their market share.
