The Toyota Prius was the original poster boy for environmentally friendly motoring, but it's definitely been overtaken and pushed somewhat into the shade in recent years by a stream of competitors with a wide variety of different eco-friendly propulsion systems. While carmakers around the world are obsessing with all-electric and even hydrogen powertrain development, Toyota has quietly produced a modified version of the Prius hybrid that takes the technology in an interesting direction.
Although developed for the Brazilian market initially, the Prius Hybrid Flexible-Fuel Vehicle (FFV) prototype is a model that as well as running on conventional petrol, can also be powered using sustainable plant-based fuels such as ethanol. The Prius FFV has been developed by the Japanese auto giant with the support of the São Paulo state government, and the idea behind it is to highlight a new way of reducing CO2 emissions in Brazil.
Due to its ability to be run on E100 ethanol, which is 100 percent renewable, alongside the regular Prius hybrid powertrain the rest of the world is so familiar with, Toyota insists the FFV is notably more eco-friendly than the plethora of regular petrol-electric hybrid powertrains out there at the moment. As Brazil is currently the world's second-largest producer of ethanol, which is made using the reproduced biomass from the fermentation of sugarcane, this car is a good fit for the country.
At the moment, the FFV is still just a prototype and part of a wider project to commercialize this kind of biofuel technology in the South American country. Toyota will be closely monitoring the durability, reliability, performance and efficiency during extensive testing before any decision is made to move towards production of the FFV.
This project is just a small part of the company's overall effort to reduce the CO2 emissions of its vehicles by 90 percent by 2050, compared to the levels detected back in 2010. The automaker is also building a hydrogen generation station at Port of Long Beach in California, which uses biomaterial to produce water, electricity and hydrogen in a clean and sustainable way.
