Kenichi Ayukawa, managing director and CEO, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, has confirmed that they are planning to introduce flex fuel in its lineup. Along with petrol and CNG, flex fuel will be their third option on offer. This comes in after Nitin Gadkari’s recent statement of planning to introduce flex fuels in the next six to eight months.
A flex fuel engine can basically run on two types of fuel, either standalone or a blend. Maruti is planning to introduce ethanol-powered flex fuel vehicles. Usually, a blend of petrol and ethanol is used but many cars in Brazil and USA can run on 100 percent ethanol. For running cars on flex fuel, manufacturers need to use compliant engine materials and set the engine compression ratio. However, the cost of making modifications to the engine won’t be as high as building a new EV. While flex fuel engines might be slightly less fuel efficient, they will reduce vehicular emissions. Flex fuel could be more affordable than petrol, but the cost of purchase of such a vehicle might be higher than a petrol one. The exact timeline and the flex-fuel compliant models will be revealed soon. Meanwhile, more models are expected to follow the flex fuel trend.
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