Brazil Reaches 10 Million Flex-Fuel Vehicles Sold

It seems Brazil really desires to go “green”, as the country’s National Association of Vehicle Manufacturers (Anfavea) recently announced that the country’s tenth million Flex-Fuel vehicle was built yesterday. A key factor in reaching this important milestone was the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) which provided the sugarcane ethanol.

Flex-Fuel technology enables cars to run on ethanol, which is a more effective, less costly biofuel, and has been recognized for its ability to reduce exhaust emissions. Brazil is the number-one sugarcane grower and sugar producer in the world, and the second-largest ethanol producer on the planet, behind the United States. In 2008, Brazil’s sugarcane ethanol industry produced an estimated 565 million metric tons of sugarcane, which yielded 31.3 million tons of sugar and 25.7 billion liters (6.8 billion gallons) of ethanol.

"We congratulate the auto industry in Brazil for its vision and the boldness shown when it chose to invest heavily in Flex technology, to the point that many of these industries do not even produce vehicles powered exclusively by gasoline any more. The next step is to take this technically proven and highly successful project to the rest of the world, since all major automakers in Brazil have a global presence," said the president of UNICA, Marcos Jank.

However, the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association revealed that their country’s striving for cleaner fuel alternatives for the fossil derived ones met the global governments’ tax barriers. “UNICA sees that situation as ironic: while fossil fuels move freely around the world, renewables, capable of positively impacting climate change, are blocked, at a time when the world repeatedly declares it is concerned about climate change,” stated their press release.