Saab will soon consolidate its commitment to selling bio-ethanol vehicles in Australia, making its BioPower engine its mainstream offering across the entire 9-3 range – despite the fact that a limited number of service station in the nation offer the eco-oriented E85 fuel.












Future fuel: E85 Saab fueling up with 85% ethanol

The move will see the deletion of the 2.0-litre inline-four petrol engine and the wider use of the identical-displacement BioPower engine, which produces a little less power – 147kW versus 154kW – but has the same 300Nm of torque and is less expensive to run, considering the lower price per litre of E85 bio-ethanol fuel compared to regular or premium unleaded petrol.

It is also claimed that driving an E85 vehicle reduces fossil fuel-based CO2 emissions by up to 80 per cent, while Saab maintains that power increases 20 per cent when using E85 compared to regular unleaded.



9-5 BioPower

SAAB has advised,
“We’ve now got over 100 BioPower cars out on the road and soon we will be in a position where we will only have BioPower cars,” “We will drop the petrol engine so that we’ll just have (V6 turbo) Aero, diesel and then a BioPower engine. It depends what stock we’ve got left but it will be fairly soon.”

The BioPower engine can run on regular unleaded fuel but is designed to use an ethanol blend of up to 85 per cent.

“You do lose some (savings) through fuel economy, but you’re getting more performance, it’s better for the environment and it’s cheaper for you as well.”

The management team was in the process of talking to petrol companies “to make sure that we can get that alignment together” but must contend with the fact that getting E85 pumps into action is taking much longer than anticipated.

Parent company General Motors was committed to the technology.

Aftermarket conversion to flex fuel capability