Contingent Engineering: The Bumpy Road for Ethanol Cars in Brazil

In the wake of the second oil shock in 1979, Brazil expanded its National Alcohol Program to replace more of its gasoline consumption with ethanol. In addition to setting new fuel production targets, the government coordinated with car manufacturers to produce vehicles engineered to run on pure ethanol. Though the new cars very quickly began selling in large numbers, the all-alcohol car ended up having a comparatively short career marked by a string of controversies. This paper focuses on a series of insider debates to evaluate this career and understand three turning points: the advent of ethanol cars, the uneven transition away from them in the 1990s, and the rise of flex-fuel cars in the 2000s, which run on any given mixture of gasoline and ethanol. Drawing on interviews and archival documents, the paper examines the roles of businessmen, engineers, and lobbying organizations in defining the trajectory of ethanol-fueled cars. For the first phase, the paper pays particular attention to a car designer and manufacturer named João do Amaral Gurgel who produced a line of all-Brazilian vehicles and became an opponent of the Alcohol Program. For the latter phases, the paper draws on interviews with Alfred Schwarcz, an engineer, and Luis Augusto Barbosa Cortez, a physicist, both of whom have worked with the Brazilian Sugarcane Association (UNICA). Paying close attention to the history of alcohol-fueled cars in Brazil can shed light on our contemporary energy transition and ongoing changes in vehicle technology and fuel mixes.