Cars

All petrol and diesel engines can run on a mixture of biofuel and fossil fuel. As a result, biofuels are already being used in place of fossil fuels.

• Biodiesel can be used in any diesel engine as a mixture of up to 20% biodiesel mixed with fossil diesel.
• Bioethanol can be used as a mixture with petrol of up to 10% without requiring any engine modifications.

Modifying engines to allow the use of more biofuel is straightforward. Flex-fuel vehicles can run on bioethanol or unleaded petrol in blends of up to 85% bioethanol. In Brazil, over 70% of new car have flex-fuel engines.

Many car manufacturers now sell flex-fuel cars. The availability of flex-fuel cars in the UK is limited, but is likely to expand as bioethanol manufacture in the UK increases.

Biofuels are likely to become the most important way of reducing our carbon emissions from transport, because they can be used in the cars that we are currently driving. Replacing all our cars with vehicles designed to run on hydrogen fuel cells or electricity might be more environmentally damaging than continuing to use the cars we have, because of the amount of energy and raw materials required to manufacture new cars.

Products and suppliers

• Peugeot - Peugeot

  Peugeot HDi Diesel engines can run on blends of biodiesel of up to 30% without modification.

  E: W: http://www.peugeot.co.uk *Please note that content on external websites is not the responsibility of the NNFCC

• Saab - Saab BioPower

  Three models of flexi-fuel cars are currently available. These can run on E85 or other mixtures of unleaded petrol and bioethanol fuels.

  E: Contact via website W: http://www.saabbiopower.co.uk *Please note that content on external websites is not the responsibility of the NNFCC

• Volvo - Flexifuel Car Range

  Five models are available that can use E85 or any mixture of E85 and petrol

  E: W: http://www.volvocars.co.uk *Please note that content on external websites is not the responsibility of the NNFCC