Ford Motor Company Receives "EUBIA" Award for Its European Bio-Ethanol Vehicle Pioneership

Ford Focus Flexifuel

The European Biomass Industry Association (EUBIA) has granted Ford its "2007 EUBIA" award, as a recognition of Ford's European pioneer ship in the area of bio-ethanol powered flexible fuel vehicles (FFVs).

The award ceremony last Friday marked the end of EUBIA's 15th biomass conference in Berlin. During one week, approximately 1,400 experts from more than 80 countries had debated the future potential and challenges of bio-energy use.

"We are proud to receive this award", said Jan Brentebraten, director, flexifuel and alternative fuel vehicles strategy, Ford of Europe. "Flexifuel technology is already available today and it's affordable, not only for the environment, but also for the customer.

"We're committed to pursuing a portfolio of technologies with the ultimate goal of reducing CO2, and we see Flexifuel as one of the most affordable options, provided a sustainable bio-ethanol fuel infrastructure continues to grow."

Ford is a market leader and the market pioneer of FFVs in Europe where it sold more than 30,000 Ford Flexifuel units since market introduction in Sweden in 2001. Ford can also claim the largest owner body for FFVs in Europe as a result of this industry-leading initiative.

While the majority of these FFVs have been sold in Sweden, the two current models – the Ford Focus and Ford C-MAX Flexifuel – have progressively been made available in 12 European markets to date. Ford is confident that more markets will follow as the demand for this type of technology is expected to continue to grow, especially as the European Union works to increase the use of bio-fuels in the future.

Building upon the success of its FFVs, Ford or Europe has announced to extend its FFV range by offering Flexifuel versions of the new Ford Mondeo, Ford Galaxy and Ford S-MAX ("European Car of the Year 2007") in early 2008. Through these actions, Ford will offer one of the broadest FFV portfolios in Europe.

Through this and its range of low-CO2 conventional vehicle technologies, such as its high tech clean diesel technologies with amongst-best-in-class CO2 performance (starting with the Ford Fiesta at 116 gCO2/km), Ford is offering one of the broadest low-CO2 vehicle portfolios in Europe already today.

Ford's Flexifuel models are designed to run on a high blend bio-ethanol in petrol (up to 85% bio-ethanol, sold as E85), as well as on petrol only, or on any combination of both fuels, making them exceptionally flexible. The use of bio-ethanol in combination with Ford's Flexifuel technology can reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions significantly.

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* For more information on the European Biomass Industry Association (EUBIA), please refer to their website http://www.eubia.org/

Source: Ford Motor Company