by V. Kumar

Created on: August 05, 2008   Last Updated: August 18, 2008

FLEX FUEL vehicles constitute one of the options that can reduce our dependence on gasoline, and help the world in dealing more firmly with the OPEC controlled price of crude and gas, which have been spiralling upwards almost without any breaks during the last couple of years.

FLEX FUEL VEHICLES

Flex fuels or flexible fuel vehicles (FFVs) are automobiles with a multi-fuel engine that can use different fuels.

The term 'flex fuel' vehicle is commonly used for those vehicles that are adapted for use of varying mixtures of ethanol and gasoline, in addition to gasoline.

Another category of vehicles using multiple fuels are those that are adapted to use gasoline or compressed natural gas as fuel, in addition to gasoline. Because such vehicles use different storage tanks for the different fuels that they use, they are also referred sometimes as 'Dual fuel vehicles.'

The adaptation for converting a usual gasoline vehicle in to a flex fuel vehicle does not cost too much. The approximate cost is $ 100 for a newer vehicle and about three times that for an older one.

HISTORY OF FLEX FUELS

Even though the flex fuel vehicle is said to have been used as early as in 1908, the concept of flex fuel vehicles first gained currency after the oil shocks of the seventies that rocked the global economy. It led to the realization of depleting oil stocks, and research was accelerated to find alternative fuels as well as vehicles capable of using them.

Brazil is one country which continued with vigorous policies to promote flex fuels even in the 1980s, in spite of the receding oil prices at a time when most efforts to develop alternate fuels were put on a back burner. During the eighties, Brazil's bio fuel economy took a major leap in the form of introduction of vehicles run on ethanol. In late nineties, when the gasoline prices hit a rock bottom, there was demand for vehicles that could be run either on gasoline or on ethanol based fuel like E85 (85% ethanol with rest gasoline). Soon, the flex-fuel vehicles were introduced.

In the United States too, ethanol produced from corn had made it the world's largest producer of fuel ethanol. Simultaneously, the demand for flex vehicles has also risen, but ethanol based fuels like E85 are still not universally available in the whole country.

Vehicles involving option of using compressed natural gas (CNG) have become popular in the whole world, and they provide a cleaner and less polluting fuel option compared to gasoline. However, CNG is a petroleum product,

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