Flexible Fuel Vehicles, or FFVs, are vehicles which can be run on bioethanol, petrol-bioethanol blends or on conventional petrol. For the user, this means a unique flexibility, as he can choose between different types of fuel, according to availability and price.

For technical reasons, it is not advisable to use 100% bioethanol as fuel in our temperate climatic regions. This is the reason that in Europe the so-called E85 is used - around 85% bioethanol, to which about 15% petrol are blended. The addition of petrol improves cold-starting characteristics, especially in winter.

The pioneers of motoring and automobile construction early on promoted the idea of using bioethanol as a fuel. As they made their trailblazing inventions in automobile and engine development, ethanol was also considered as a fuel to power their forward-looking developments.

As early as 1860, Nikolaus August Otto used ethanol as fuel in the prototype of his own internal combustion engines. Henry Ford had conceived his legendary Model T, which was to revolutionise the mass-production of cars, as a vehicle powered by bioethanol, and predicted that fuel would be produced from biomass in the future. Today, the large-scale manufacture of bioethanol from biomass is done world-wide. In Europe, bioethanol is mosty manufactured from cereals and sugar beet. 

In Germany, there is a long-standing tradition of using bioethanol: it has been used ever since 1925 as an additive to improve anti-knock characteristics. 

In Brazil and the USA, FFVs have become a feature of the road scene. In Brazil, vehicles exclusively using ethanol as fuel already have a long tradition - they have been on the market there since the 1980s, though it is true that these vehicles are increasingly being ousted by FFVs. In the USA, FFVs are similarly widely distributed: there are around five million of them on America's roads. 

In Europe, by contrast - with the exception of Sweden - FFVs are not yet widely spread. In Germany, the first FFV was introduced in 2005. Today, the German market already has models offered by Ford, Saab and Volvo with flexible fuel technology: from Ford, the Focus, C-MAX Galaxy, Mondeo, and S-MAX models, Saab the 9-3 and the 9-5 and Volvo the C30, S40, V50, V70, and S80 models. Volvo plan to extend their ranges in 2008 by an additional FFV motor.

It is also encouraging that the German automotive manufaturers will increase their number of FFV models offered in Germany. This was announced in the roadmap from November 2007 which was passed by the mineral oil industry, the medium sized mineral oil industry, agriculture and the concerned ministries.