Flexible-fuel vehicles in Brazil

The fleet of flexible-fuel vehicles in Brazil is the largest in the world. Since their inception in 2003, a total of 30.5 million flex fuel cars and light-duty trucks were registered in the country, and over 6 million flexible-fuel motorcycles, both by March 2018. The market share of flex-fuel autos and light commercial trucks represented 88.6% of all light-duty registrations in 2017. There were over 80 flex car and light truck models available in the market manufactured by 14 major carmakers, and five flex-fuel motorcycles models available as of December 2012.

Brazilian flexible-fuel vehicles are optimized to run on any mix of E20-E25 gasoline and up to 100% hydrous ethanol fuel (E100). Flex vehicles in Brazil are built-in with a small gasoline reservoir for cold starting the engine when temperatures drop below 15 °C (59 °F). An improved flex motor generation was launched in 2009 which eliminated the need for the secondary gas tank.

According to two separate research studies conducted in 2009, 65% of the flex-fuel registered vehicles regularly use ethanol fuel, and use climbs to 93% of flex car owners in São Paulo, the main ethanol producer state where local taxes are lower, and prices are more competitive than gasoline. However, as a result of higher ethanol prices caused by the Brazilian ethanol industry crisis that began in 2009, by November 2013 only 23% flex-fuel car owners were using ethanol regularly, down from 66% in 2009.