NGV Global - Technology Provides Mixed Solution for Oil Dependence - Natural Gas Included: "Brazil is proving that technology solutions to oil dependence issues already exist, as demonstrated by the impending launch of a world first Tetrafuel� vehicle.

Last month in Chicago, speaking on Iraq war and terrorism, President Bush surprisingly raised the issue on flex-fuel or bi-fuel cars. Following this, Mr. Bush has insisted on the proposal to use alternative energy sources to displace oil, claiming on the need to expedite the technology development to make it a real possibility. Some few days previously to Mr. Bush�s speech, the Washington Post had published a report under the title �GM hides their most efficient cars � in Brazil�.
The Post reporter has spent some days in S�o Paulo, driving Flex Power models in the GM testing track, and wrote: �I have left GM-Brazil asking how a global company, with so many capable and creative people, can do some stupid things, such as keeping their best models out of a market that is desperately in need of them�. In this case, the market is the American one. It is difficult to avoid saying that Mr. Bush�s dream is a reality, in Brazil.

In May, from the total Brazilian light vehicles production, 76% have been manufactured with flex-fuel engines. The auto makers have been forced to anticipate this production level, expected to be met only in 2010. The great demand for this technology has resulted from gasoline price increases. Flex fuel vehicles have been produced locally since 2003, but at a lower production rate. A recent development of this technology is the tetra-fuel engine, which is capable to run on natural gas, besides gasoline, gasohol or ethanol. This gives the customer an additional protection against a simultaneous ethanol and gas"