During a visit by Fiat CEO Luca di Montezemolo to the Betim plant to celebrate 30 years of operation in Brazil, the automaker’s Latin American president Cledorvino Belini announced that Fiat will, by the end of the year, launch a ‘tetrafuel’ version of its locally-made Siena compact sedan.
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Encouraged by strong growth in flexible vehicles sales in Brazil, the new vehicle will be an evolution of the normal flex-fuel system and can use four distinct fuels. The Siena tetrafuel will run on Brazilian petrol (with 25% blend of anhydrous alcohol), pure petrol (E0), alcohol or natural gas. The vehicle also runs on a blend of the liquid fuels.
The Siena tetrafuel can also be shipped to other countries to run on pure petrol without engine adjustment.
The fuel system control unit was developed jointly by Fiat and Magneti Marelli.
The supplier said about $US6m was spent developing the tetrafuel system, that adjusts the engine’s electronic mapping to work best whatever fuel is being used.
The Siena tetrafuel has one tank for liquid fuels (alcohol and petrol) and a second tank for natural gas, installed in the luggage compartment. Unlike other vehicles running on natural gas, the tetrafuel model switches between liquid and gas fuel automatically.
Consquently, it will start and run on natural gas but, if the control unit determines that it needs more power, such as when overtaking or climbing hills, it will switch automatically to liquid fuel, returning to natural gas when appropriate.
When the gas runs out, the engine switches to liquid fuel.
Until now, only GM has sold a multi-fuel car in Brazil. Its Astra Multipower sedan has a Bosch trifuel system that runs on Brazilian petrol, alcohol or natural gas.
During the first two months of 2006, flex-fuel cars accounted for 74.7% of vehicle sales in Brazil.
The country has a million cars with natural gas systems that work with petrol or alcohol-fuelled engines.
Rogério Louro
