Bi-Fuel Ethanol-Diesel Vehicle Debuts in Brazil

domesticfuel.com
Posted by Joanna Schroeder – June 2nd, 2011

Typically flex fuel vehicles are a combination of ethanol and gasoline or diesel and biodiesel. But inroads have been made to create flex fuel vehicles that use a combination of ethanol and diesel fuels. Iveco, FPT Industrial and Bosch officially debuted the Iveco Trakker Bi-Fuel Ethanol-Diesel vehicle at Agrishow last week in Ribeirão Preto, the country’s largest agricultural show.

The Takker contains an FPT Industrial Cursor 9 engine that can run on an ethanol and diesel mixture and is geared toward sugarcane and ethanol producers in the country. In early tests, the vehicle has successfully been using a 40 percent ethanol / 60 percent diesel blend and providing a 6 percent reduction in fuel costs. Development of the bi-flex vehicle began in 2010 with support from UNICA, the Brazilian Association of Sugarcane Producers and part of an ethanol industry “green policies” program.

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