Primed for the pump

SAO PAULO, Brazil — If it wasn’t for the TotalFlex logo on the new Gol subcompacts leaving a sprawling Volkswagen plant, the shiny cars would be indistinguishable from millions already on the road across Latin America.

But these Gols and other models produced by Fiat SpA and General Motors Corp. have modified engines that, given the rising price of oil, are making Brazilians smile at the gas pumps. They run on gasoline, alcohol or any combination of the two and now represent nearly 20 percent of the new cars sold in Brazil.

With alcohol — also called ethanol — selling at half the price of gas in South America’s largest country, Brazilians who have bought 200,000 “flex-fuel” cars since their launch last year say deciding which fuel to use is a no-brainer.

“Alcohol, all the time,” said office manager Roseli Santana as she filled up her 2004 subcompact GM Montana pickup at a Shell station in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and home to 5 million cars. “I was using 52 reals ($17) of gas every week, now I’m paying 30 reals ($10) for the same amount, except it’s alcohol.”

Brazil hopes to export flex-fuel cars and technology around the world, and auto industry executives say interest from abroad is increasing. So far, Volkswagen has hosted delegations from Australia, China, England, India, Japan and South Africa.

“They want to know how it works,” said Joao Alvarez Jr., the top engineering executive for Volkswagen’s Brasil’s flex-fuel car lineup, which has the biggest market share. “Gasoline is going to run out someday, everyone knows that.”

Engine and assembly line changes to make flex-fuel cars aren’t complicated, though the cars come outfitted with a tiny gas-only tank under the hood smaller than a windshield wiper fluid reservoir. It’s used to start the car on cold days just for a moment before automatically switching back to alcohol or whatever is in the main tank.

But mass exports of flex-fuel cars aren’t likely in the near future, because no other country has an alcohol fuel production and distribution system as advanced as Brazil’s. Virtually all the country’s service stations offer alcohol.

The idea for non-gas-powered cars goes back to the 1970s fuel crisis, when Brazil’s economy nose-dived, prompting the country’s military dictatorship to launch a campaign to wean the country from expensive, imported oil.