italiaspeed.com

Fiat Powertrain Technologies is developing an ethanol engine in Brazil which will become applicable to the Fiat Group's trucks, agricultural and construction equipment divisions.

The project, which will adapt an existing engine from the FTP range, will be completed by 2010 and around 10 million euros have been set aside to realise the engine. Bosch is involved with the project. The first prototypes will be trialled in agricultural equipment during the country's next cane harvest.

By developing the project in Brazil, Fiat Powertrain aims to make the engine available on the world's biggest cane production market; cane is the raw ingredient for ethanol production. This means that local users will be able to run the engine with self-produced cost-price ethanol and hence reduce farming and transportation costs.

The project will first have to overcome a number of safety concerns. "With ethanol, safety is required, we want a totally secure project," commented Franco Ciranni, Fiat Powertrain Technologies Latin American manager.

A small amount of diesel will be required to ignite the ethanol, but for safety reasons this will be held in a separate tank on the vehicle and only mixed with the ethanol once it has reached the combustion chamber. "Use of additives makes running dangerous, subject to explosions," says FPT's product development engineer Joao Irineu Medeiros. "The diesel will be just enough for ignition and the ethanol will complete the combustion," he said

Founded in March 2005 during a reorganisation, FPT brought together all the engine and powertrain activities of the Fiat Group under one umbrella. FPT reckons that, providing economies of scale with the new engine's production can be achieved, the new ethanol engine will cost around one-third of the price of running a diesel. "The factory will use ethanol because it won't pay tax on it and performance with ethanol and diesel will be the same," said Cloves Mendes, Fiat Powertrain's new technologies chief.