Buick Regal, a car model by General Motors of Detroit, US, was first manufactured in 1973. Its production for the American market continued till 2004 though it continued production for the Chinese market. Now, it is being re-introduced in America as a sports sedan.
The company has lately announced that its 2011 model of Buick Regal will be a flex-fuel car. This means that its turbo engine (Ecotech) of 2.0 liter capacity, with direct injection, will now run on gasoline and E85 ethanol. One main requirement of the fuel ethanol is that it requires a richer air mixture with it to function adequately. That is why it is provided with direct injectors which bring about higher flow of the fuel. A fuel sensor in the system measures the ethanol and gasoline mixture, of which 85% is allowed for ethanol. The sensor enables the engine to automatically adjust the combination to provide the desired emissions, fuel consumption and thus the desired performance. Though this advantageous change has been made to its turbo engine, the horse power of the car remains the same, at 220hp with torque of 258 lb-ft.
The engine has other new features to its credit. It now is an aluminum cylinder, sand cast block. This means that now it is relatively more silent than its predecessor with lesser vibrations and, moreover, better durability.
At present, ethanol, though produced in America , is not really cheap but since there are more and more ethanol gas stations opening up in the country due to its high demand as more car manufacturers make their cars flex-fuel, ethanol is likely to become cheaper and so more in demand.
General Motors plans to make more than 50% of its car models favoring flex-fuel by 2012, though it has already manufactured 5 million and more flex-fuel cars in the last 15 years.