Toyota has tested flexfuel Prius and has plans to release it in Brazil late this year
 

Both articles are in Portuguese, so use some automatic translator if you can't read in boliguayo :D

https://carros.uol.com.br/noticias/r...-no-brasil.htm

https://carros.uol.com.br/noticias/r...-no-brasil.htm

Well, according to the reports, the efficiency while running on ethanol doesn't seem so great at all. And since it's most likely going to retain the sequential port injection with a heated fuel rail like most current flexfuel cars in Brazil, I'd be quite concerned about the effect of frequent cold starts due to the intermittent operation of the ICE in heavy traffic.

About four years ago, I tested our Gen-1 and Gen-3 using up to E85. I found that mixing E50 worked without the check engine light. Above this ratio, the error code was a mixture limit (if I remember correctly.) Regardless, the car worked with the spark advanced due to the higher octane rating. I had one start failure on a freezing temperature morning but the second attempt worked fine. Unfortunately, I found it impractical.

The retail price for E85 was significantly higher than the wholesale price of gasoline at 15% and ethanol at 85% ratio. This made E85 too expensive to use versus E10, the cheapest.

Bob Wilson

Makes me remind of some media reports about people running straight ethanol in gasoline-powered cars in 2001, before the first flexfuels hit the market in Brazil. My stepmother's older son once inquired me about it in 2008 or 2009, and I explained him the EFI could self-adjust to compensate for the difference in octane rating, but the rougher idling right after a cold start was unavoidable.


Ethanol price had been high in Brazil, but it's still usually not higher than gasoline. OTOH it's still not economically viable anymore, as it doesn't offset the lower fuel-efficiency since the difference to gasoline price had been lower than 30%.

A flexfuel Prius is yet to come, but the E210 Corolla now features a flexfuel hybrid version in Brazil. It was supposed to come only as hybrid, but it does also feature some versions with a non-hybrid powertrain.