Gojirra99

13 June 2005

TOKYO: Japan's top automaker Toyota Motor has begun developing a "flex-fuel" vehicle powered by gasoline and lower-priced alcohol fuel, and aimed at the Brazilian and other Latin American markets, a newspaper reported.

Toyota aims to launch the new vehicle in the second half of next year or later, with the demand for alcohol fuel made from sugarcane or other plants rising as alternative to gasoline in Latin America, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.

A flex-fuel car runs with both gasoline and alcohol pumped into a single tank, allowing the driver to adjust the mixture between the two depending on their prices, the economic daily noted.

In Brazil the prices of ethanol, a type of alcohol fuel, are only half those of gasoline and drivers are allowed to adjust the ratio between the two fuels, it said.

Toyota, the pioneer of a hybrid car powered alternately by gasoline and electricity, did not develop flex-fuel cars before because alcohol fuel is not allowed to exceed three percent of the total in Japan, it said.

But the company now sees strong demand for such vehicles in Latin America as well as growing consumer interest in other emerging markets such as China and India, the paper said without citing sources.

The Nihon Keizai said all foreign carmakers operating in Brazil, except for Toyota and Honda Motor, were already marketing flex-fuel cars.

No immediate comment on the report was available from Toyota.

source : channelnewsasia

mmarshall

It will be VERY interesting to see what kind of materials they design the fuel delivery system with on this vehicle. Alcohol cannot be used with conventional gasoline lines and hoses because it corrodes them and eats them up...although small amount of alcohol, like in gas-line anti-freezes, is useful because it dries up the moisture. Nor is gasoline particularly compatible with systems designed for alcohol. That is why alcohol-gas mixtures in the U.S. , even in the Midwest where they are popular and where alcohol is made from corn, can not exceed 10% alcohol....any more alcohol than that damages fuel lines.
We're also going to have to assume that the engineers are not going to install two completely different fuel systems in the same car....they would be too complex. Whatever they install, obviously, will have to withstand gasoline AND alcohol without damage.


Any chemists here on CL ?...............Let's hear your opinions on this.

BlkGS3

Yeah theres alot of alcohol in poor countries