Alcohol Fueled Flex Car Sales Rocket in Brazil, page 1

posted on Oct, 9 2005 @ 05:02 AM

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The flex cars, short for flexible fuel, powered by ethanol and gasoline are now outselling traditional vehicles in Brazil. This year manufacturers expect two out of three new cars sold in Brazil will be a flex car.

www.csmonitor.com
Regular car engines will run fine on a 10 percent blend of alcohol and gasoline. But by using computer sensors that adjust to whatever mix is in the tank, flex car engines run on either ethanol, gasoline, or any combination of the two. And they have been roaring out of dealerships here since Volkswagen sold the first TotalFlex Golf in March 2003.

Today, flex cars are outselling traditional gasoline models. In August, 62 percent of new cars sold were flex, according to industry numbers. "Demand has been unbelievable," says Barry Engle, the new president of Ford Brasil. "I am hard-pressed to think of any other technology that has been such a success so quickly."

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

Flex cars, introduced by VW and GM, can use any pure or blended fuel from 100% gasoline to 100% ethanol and the cost to fuel them is from a third to half the cost of a traditonal gas-powered cars.

The problem is the 3 million "flex-fuel" vehicles now on U.S. roads are seldom fueled with ethanol, since US tariffs on sugar keep ethanol prices high and there isn't much infrastructrure set up for it.

Flex cars sold in Brazil don't cost any more than traditional models either, unlike the new hybrids.

Related News Links:
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[edit on 10/12/05 by FredT]

St Udio

posted on Oct, 9 2005 @ 06:24 AM

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``

just 1/2 hour ago (6 AM eastern) there was the above news item on the radio.

It turns out that one unexpected consequence of flex-fuel supply=>
is that the lots of the sugarcane crops are being diverted for producing
ethanol/alcohol(for the vehicles)
instead of
sugar (for the humans)......

in the short term, the price of sugar has risen,
and that reverberates throughout the economy in Brazil ...

The poor & the laboring population need affordable & addictive, edible products, so they may continue producing services & being pawns of industry.
Those better off, desire affordable fuel to power their mobile bio-spheres
with appointments like GPS, Wi-Fi connectivity, AC, ergonomic consoles,
Dolby sound DVD screens to each passenger...all the bells-&-whistles.
----------so, at this present time, there is a dis-equilibrium
pitting ones 'needs' against anothers 'wants' within a social order.

and it goes downhill, from this point onward
eh?

[edit on 9-10-2005 by St Udio]

djohnsto77

posted on Oct, 9 2005 @ 06:36 AM

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In the U.S. we produce ethanol mainly from corn, not sugar. There's plenty of capacity and no need to import sugar.

shots

posted on Oct, 9 2005 @ 08:54 AM

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In the U.S. we produce ethanol mainly from corn, not sugar. There's plenty of capacity and no need to import sugar.

I think it was CNN could have been fox network really does not matter, but the cars are designed to run solely on this new type of fuel. They showed taxi drivers filling up and they said it is one half the cost that of normal gas. Not sure just how the blend if it is a blend really works to be honest. Reportedly they said it was better then corn for some reason or another.

[edit on 10/9/2005 by shots]