How it began
Brazil created the Proalcool program on November 14, 1975, to cut its dependence on imported oil after the first oil crisis. Research on ethanol engines had been carried out in the 1970s by Professor Urbano Ernesto Stumpf and his team at the Aerospace Technical Center. Fiat began developing an ethanol engine in 1976 and showed a prototype of the 147 at the Sao Paulo Motor Show that year. On July 5, 1979, the first ethanol Fiat 147 reached Brazilian streets. Fiat tested it on the track of its Betim factory.
Before it existed
In 1973 Brazil imported 77.3 percent of its oil, and the share reached 84.8 percent in 1979. Cars ran on gasoline. In the first phase of Proalcool, from 1975 to 1979, ethanol was used only as a blend in gasoline, under a mandate and with subsidies, and it was made from molasses left over by the sugar industry.
How it works
To burn pure ethanol, Fiat raised the compression ratio of its 1.3 liter engine from 7.5 to 1 in the gasoline version to 11.2 to 1, and set the carburetor for a much richer mixture. Because the fuel is corrosive, the tank, pump, pipes and carburetor were protected with a nickel coating and the exhaust was aluminized. A small gasoline tank and a dashboard button injected gasoline into the intake for cold starts.
Who pushed back
The system proved fragile. Proalcool had depended on the support of the military government, and after the mid 1980s expansion stopped. Production could not keep up with the number of ethanol cars, and in 1989 there was a shortage of ethanol across the country. The shortage badly damaged confidence in the fuel, and sales of pure ethanol cars fell sharply.
What changed first
Before the launch, three cars were tested by the highway department on the Rio-Niteroi Bridge, and in September 1978 an ethanol 147 covered 6,800 kilometers across the country in 12 days. Fiat sold 120,516 ethanol 147s between 1979 and 1987. In the second phase of Proalcool, from 1979 to 1985, annual ethanol output rose from 3,396 million to 11,829 million liters. By 1986 pure ethanol cars were 92 percent of light vehicle sales in Brazil.
Where it stands today
Ethanol returned with flexible-fuel cars, which can burn gasoline, ethanol or any mix. Volkswagen launched the Gol Total Flex, the first Brazilian commercial flex-fuel car, in 2003. Because Proalcool had put ethanol pumps at filling stations across the country, drivers could choose by price. A 2016 review reported that about nine in ten new cars sold in Brazil were flex-fuel and that the country produced around 29 billion liters of ethanol in 362 mills.
