Flex Fuel Vehicles (FFV)

Flex Fuel Vehicles (FFV)

Part of: Prelims and GS-III Conservation; Economy

Context  Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways advised the Automobile Manufacturers in India to start manufacturing Flex Fuel Vehicles (FFV) and Flex Fuel Strong Hybrid Electric Vehicles (FFV-SHEV) complying with BS-6 Norms in a time bound manner within a period of six months.

Key takeaways 

• In line with the government’s policy on promoting ethanol as a transport fuel, Flex Fuel Vehicles are capable of running on a combination of 100% Petrol or 100% bio-ethanol and their blends, along with strong Hybrid Electric technology in case of FFV-SHEVs.
• Significance: This move will drastically reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions from vehicles, helping India to comply with its commitment made at COP26 to reduce the total projected carbon emissions by One Billion Tonnes by 2030.
• In order to accelerate the introduction of Flex Fuel vehicles, the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme has included automobile & auto components and auto components of flex fuel engines.

What are flex-fuel engines?

• A ‘flex-fuel engine’ is an internal combustion engine that can run on more than one type of fuel and also a mixture.
• Typically, a blend of petrol and ethanol or methanol is used, and the engine is capable of automatically adjusting for any ratio. 
• Flex-fuel engines are capable of running on 100 percent petrol or ethanol and are already available in countries such as Brazil, USA and Canada.