Mahindra and TVS developing
flex-fuel bikes
By Ben Purvis
While the recent rise to 10% bioethanol in standard UK petrol has already made waves among riders - particularly owners of older bikes that might not be able to use the new fuel - spare a thought for Indian motorcyclists and manufacturers as they will soon have to deal with much higher levels of ethanol.
Under current plans, India intends to up bioethanol levels to 20% in standard petrol in 2025, and the country’s government has asked manufacturers to examine the possibility of a shift to 100% ethanol blends in the future. As a result, both Mahindra and TVS are reported to have started projects to develop flex-fuel motorcycles that can run on a wide variety of alcohol levels in their fuel.
Flex-fuel engines are far from new. They’re already commonplace in parts of the world like Brazil, where millions of cars and bikes are able to run on high-ethanol blends as well as more conventional petrol. In much of Europe and North America, ethanol mixes of up to 85% (E85) are widely available, retaining 15% fossil fuel petrol to help alleviate problems starting pure ethanol (E100) engines at low temperatures. In many areas, winter-grade fuel with lower ethanol content is supplied during cold weather.
In contrast, the Brazilian approach is often to have two separate fuel tanks, a larger one for ethanol fuels up to E100, and a small tank filled with conventional petrol that’s used just during cold starts. These are the sort of issues that TVS and Mahindra will be investigating in their flex-fuel projects.
Whether the same approach will be applied in Europe may depend largely on how quickly electric vehicles are adopted. With many countries aiming to phase out new internal combustion engine vehicles within the next decade or so, there may not be time to fully embrace ethanol fuels and to develop and manufacture vehicles that can use higher percentages of ethanol before companies have to make the wholesale switch to electric power.
