Last month we wrote about Ferrari reducing its emissions by 40% over the next five years (by 2012). This week at the Detroit Auto Show, they took a step toward reaching that goal by introducing a concept car that runs on E85 (85% Ethanol, 15% Gasoline). The "Ferrari F430 Spider Biofuel" is essentially the always-beautiful Spider, but with a few modifications. The fuel injection system was tweaked and of course the computer systems were changed to reflect the differences in the fuel. Of course, that's not all -- it also comes with fancy green stripes.

Interestingly, these changes (not the stripes), actually increased the power output, likely due to ethanol's higher octane and being able to be used in higher compression engines, providing greater horsepower than from traditional gasoline. It also resulted in a 5% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, which doesn't sound like much, but if you consider that 85% of the fuel is nearly carbon-neutral (we must add some emissions due to processing of the organic matter), it's not a bad start.

 

But as Matt James so aptly put it, though I am paraphrasing, "it's still a fuel-intense Ferrari that's not really green, and for all the 4 or 5 times it's used in a year, from cradle to cradle it's still a net loss for the environment."