Watching a program on Brazil’s ethanol-fueled cars one evening in his Streeterville home, Mitch Sremac wondered: What would it take for people in the U.S. to start running their cars on alcohol, too?
For today’s fleet, his answer was a fuel-conversion kit. After 18 months of tinkering and $1 million from friends and family, Sremac, 55, an auto-parts company president, built just such a device—the first to be certified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency—and established Flex Fuel U.S., with himself as chief executive, in October.
The Flex-Box Smart Kit is about the size of an old Walkman and mounts under the hood of a car. It automatically sips the fuel to determine its alcohol level and throttles the fuel injector accordingly.
The kit allows cars to drive smoothly on everything from E85, a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, to pure gasoline.
Flex Fuel is field-testing its product in a Chicago police car and hopes to begin retailing the kit at $1,295 in April.
Photo by Flex Fuel U.S..
cassy on September 27th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
although its quiet expensive but if you can save from it then why not try…