India vs Brazil - the Ethanol Story !!!

 Ethanol Blending is NOT SOMETHING NEW

It is something Brazil started in 1970, US started in the late 1990s and China started in 2009–2010, all WELL BEFORE INDIA did in 2012–2013

Yet India is as usual the MOST MESSED UP in Ethanol Adoption

Let's compare India with Brazil and China to see WHERE INDIA BUNGLED

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Fact 1 : A 50 year Evolution vs a Rushed Experiment

Brazil began their Ethanol strategy Way back in 1970

It was Long term

In 1981 - there were 6% Ethanol Pumps and 94% Pure Gasoline pumps

In 1991 - there were 39% Ethanol Mixed Pumps and 61% Pure Gasoline Pumps

In 2011 - there were 62% Ethanol Mixed Pumps, 24% Pure E100 Pumps and 14% Gasoline Pumps

In 2021 - Gasoline Pumps nearly vanished

Over 51 years from 2% Blending to 27% Blending

India began their experiment in 2014 and by 2025 - went from 1.5% to 20%

Where Brazil took 51 years to evolve from 2% mixing to 27% mixing, India decided to do the same in 11 years from 1.5% to 20%

Fact 2 : Engine Evolution faster than Fuel Evolution in Brazil

Brazilian Government and Engineering organizations developed FLEX DESIGNS of Engines compatible with higher and higher ethanol

However Fuel Blending always followed Engineering Re Design

For instance

1983 - Brazilian specifications of Engines specially to handle 10% Mixing instead of 2%

1998 - 90% Cars compatible with 10% Mixing of Ethanol

1999 - E10 rollout begins

2001 - 90% Petrol Pumps are E10 compatible

Brazil first ensured all cars would handle 10% Ethanol mixing THEN ROLLED OUT THE PETROL PUMPS

Always slow and steady but extremely efficient

Meanwhile India

Fuel Evolution outstripped Engine Evolution by several years

2014 - 1.5% Mixing of Ethanol

2018 - 5% Mixing of Ethanol, 73% Pumps now selling E5 but almost 80% of the Two Wheeler Fleet and 75% Four Wheeler Fleet still not running on Flex Engines

2025 - 20% Mixing of Ethanol. 100% Pumps selling E20 but almost 61% of the Two Wheeler Fleet and 87% of the Four wheeler fleet still run on OLDER ENGINES not yet capable of handling 20% Ethanol

India first pumped out E20 and then decided to ensure cars modified their engines

Ensuring there would be a terrible problems

Fact 3 Legacy Fleet vs Compatible Fleet

Brazil runs 88% Flex Fuel Vehicles capable of handling E27

India has a largely legacy fleet

Only 6% Working Indians own cars and of these only 13% of Indians purchased Cars in the last 5 years (2020–2025)

This means 87% of Cars in India are older than 2020 and thus incapable of properly using E20 and more suitable for E10 or even E5

Someone who can normally handle 2 pegs of whiskey cannot be expected to handle 4–5 pegs of whiskey with the same results

Smaller Engines less capable of handling ethanol and MORE PRICE SENSITIVE

Today 61% Two Wheelers are older than 2020 and their engines were built for E10 or even E5

Fact 4 - Superb Infrastructure vs Shoddy Infrastructure

Brazils Ethanol Infrastructure has been built over 50 years

Decades of Investments

Pipelines

India's Ethanol Infrastructure is like a Illegal Hooch Distribution network😁

• Pipelines non existent
• Depot mixing
• No proper standards yet
• No supply chain

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So the problem isn't ETHANOL mixed with Petrol

The Problem as usual is The Rush and Hurry of Indians as usual

Invento develops a Robot in 2016. A Primitive Robot

They don't wait 10–20 years to evolve their product

They instantly launch a success meet , show off this Robot to Ivanka Trump, announce it is ready for commercial sales

They end up nowhere exactly like other Robotics Companies in India

Idea Ok, Implementation Disaster

Unitree starts at the same time

Evolves SLOWLY and quietly

Model by Model

Early Models Laughable, Later models better and better , finally Commercial export worthy models

Today a True Commercial Robotics Manufacturer with large share of exports (Note - Unitree is still pretty basic compared to Agibot, UBTech and Deep Robotics of China)

Slow and Careful Strategy, Implementation perfect, Successful Final Launch

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Why do Indians always RUSH into decisions ?

Why not a long term rollout plan ?

Why not a 40 year strategy from E5 to E20

2018 - E5

2028 - Fully E5 Compatible Cars , E15 Mix starts

2043 - Many E15 Compatible Cars , E30 Mix starts

2060 - Fully E30 Compliant Fleet

Because Gadkari has to become rich !!!

Because Adani has to become super rich!!!

Because Modi has to be voted into power and elections need money !!!

The People? Who cares about them

A Handful of Jai Shri Rams would have them obeying and voting in a hurry for the BJP each and every time

What trivia (and/or little-known facts) do you find interesting about Brazil?

 I can think of some interesting facts about Brazil. I ended up settling on five such facts, though I know of plenty of others, too.

Brazil Fact #1: If you land on Brazil’s coastline (not counting the northern part where it runs almost east-to-west) and begin traveling inland, you won’t experience a broad coastal plain; rather, you’ll soon encounter cliffs and mountainsides. The elevation rises rapidly. It’s called the Great Escarpment.

Elevation map of Brazil. Notice how the highlands are so close to the coastline. The highlands’ eastern boundary is what they call the Great Escarpment.

Brazil Fact #2: Brazil has five different major cities named “São José” (Saint Joseph). I was using the convention that a “major city” means a city whose population exceeds 100,000. The catch is that for four of those five major cities, “São José” is only part of their name. For example, one of them is the city of São José de Ribamar. Only the one in the state of Santa Catarina is simply named “São José”.

São José dos Campos at night. It’s one of five “São José” major cities in Brazil, where “major city” means population > 100K.

Brazil Fact #3: The Amazon rainforest (most of which lies in Brazil) is home to a wealth of biodiversity. This includes a bunch of animals that I would describe as very - for lack of a better term - cool. Admittedly, this fact is already widely-known. But I can make it more specific and therefore a little more valuable. When I say “cool” animals of the Amazon, I’m thinking of scarlet macaws, jaguars, toucans, fer-de-lances, giant anteaters, harpy eagles, capybaras, spider monkeys, anacondas, tapirs, hoatzins……

Two scarlet macaws in a tree. The scarlet macaw is one of many “cool” animals that inhabit the Amazon rainforest.

Brazil Fact #4: One such Amazonian creature has a reputation that’s worse than it deserves to be. I mean the piranha, which inhabits the Amazon River in Brazil. Very few people have ever actually been killed by piranhas. If piranhas have devoured a human body, that was very likely a dead human body, such as a person who drowned. Piranhas are more like vultures and less like crocodiles. They’d rather wait until you’re dead before they start eating you.

Piranhas are far more likely to eat a human who’s already dead (e. g. drowning victims) than a human who’s still living.

Brazil Fact #5: Brazil’s national football team, a. k. a. soccer team [yeah, yeah, I know, sorry], is the only one in the world that has qualified for and participated in all 23 World Cup tournaments to date. That includes the upcoming one (2026). And apparently, part of the sport’s enormous popularity there is that it helped build a strong sense of national identity for a people who had previously been regarded as a disorganized “hodgepodge” of different peoples, with different skin colors and ethnicities. At least, that’s what I have read.

The Brazilian squad celebrates their triumph over Italy at the 1970 FIFA World Cup final. The shirtless guy being hoisted by his teammates is Brazil’s superstar player, Pelé.

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All five of the images in this answer were from Wikipedia.

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Yes, I am one of those annoying Americans who says “soccer”. Sorry. It’s just that the word “football” denotes an entirely different sport where I’m from.

I voted for Kamala Harris, okay? 😆 So at least I’m not one of those really obnoxious Americans, right? 😁

(I also voted for Joe Biden in 2020, for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and for Barack Obama in 2012. You sure won’t find me at any Trump rallies!)

What are special things about Brazil?

 1. Brazil is the 5th largest country in the world and is largest country in South America.

2. Brazil has the 2nd highest number of airports in the world, after the U.S.

3. The name Brazil comes from a tree named brazilwood.

4. Brazilian prisoners can reduce their sentence by 4 days for every book they read and write a report on.

5. In 1958, a rhinoceros was a candidate in the city council elections in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

6. Brazil's Capital,Brasilia, looks like an aeroplane from above.

7. Brazil once tried to sell an aircraft carrier on eBay.

8. The biggest Japanese community outside of Japan is in Brazil.

9. The 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will be the first time a South American country has the right to host them.

10.Voting is mandatory in Brazil.

11. The Bororo people of Brazil are one of the few groups of people where all have the same blood type: "O".

12. There's an Island in Brazil where civilians are forbidden to go: it has up to 5 snakes per square meter.

13. Brazil covers 3 time zones.

14. Brazil shares a border with all South American countries except for Chile and Ecuador.