Govt allows registration of flex-fuel vehicles running on 85% to 100% ethanol-blended petrol (file photo)
NEW DELHI: Paving the way for roll out of flex fuel vehicles (FFVs) that can run on up to E100 — nearly 100% pure ethanol or about 93-95% ethanol-blended with petrol — road transport ministry Monday modified changes in Central Motor Vehicles Rules.This comes barely months before some car manufacturers launch their E100 models.FFVs with an internal combustion engine can run on petrol, biofuels like ethanol or methanol, or any mixture of both stored in a single fuel tank. E100 fuels are “intended only for vehicles designed and certified to use it”.Officials said this is not applicable for other vehicles.“Vehicles that use E20 or normal fuel can’t use E85 or E100 fuel.
Hence, the notification doesn’t require owners of existing vehicles to switch to these fuel categories or modify their vehicles now or in the future,” said a transport ministry official.TOI has learnt that the change in rules was essential for type approval and registration of FFVs on E100 considering that vehicle manufacturers are ready with their products.
Depending on the vehicle’s design and certification, the range of blending may extend to E85 or E100, a fuel predominantly consisting of ethanol.Flex fuel technology is used in countries such as Brazil and the US.
Ethanol has a lower fossil carbon footprint than conventional petrol and the use of higher ethanol blends can help reduce tailpipe emission of carbon monoxide (CO) and certain hydrocarbons. Greater ethanol use will also reduce dependence on import of crude oil.While govt notification will enable OEMs to manufacture FFVs, this won’t be enough to push adoption of these vehicles, experts said. This is evident as even after almost seven months of the launch of E85 cars, only 17 such vehicles have been registered.Industry players called reduction in GST on FFVs from 28% to 5% (on par with EVs) to bring down vehicle cost for buyers and compensate for mileage loss, which is about 27% while using E100 fuel.Besides, they sought a reduction in fuel cost to around Rs 75 a litre.But a bigger problem is availability of E100 given that there are only a handful of pumps, although it can run on other grades of ethanol-blended fuel.