Las Vegas (Platts)--7Feb2013/342 pm EST/2042 GMT

US consumer demand for flex-fuel vehicles, which can run on high levels of ethanol, is not strong enough for automakers to market them in the country, representatives of several major automakers said Thursday.

"Somebody has to demonstrate some interest" in FFVs in the US before General Motors will boost its offerings of those vehicles like it has in Brazil, said Coleman Jones, biofuel implementation manager with the company, at the Renewable Fuels Association's annual conference in Las Vegas.

Coleman also noted automakers need "confidence" that significant ethanol will be available for the vehicles. He cited the drought last year that forced ethanol plant shutdowns and production curtailments.

Volkswagen also is not seeing much US demand for vehicles that can take up to 85% ethanol-gasoline blends. While in Sweden the company had dealers asking specifically for FFVs, "that's not the case right now in the US," said Stuart Johnson, senior manager with Volkswagen Group of America.

As for Honda, if the company hears customers ask for more FFVs, it will offer more but "we haven't heard that yet," said Ed Cohen, the company's vice president of government and industry relations. For now, FFVs are "not the highest thing on our list," he said.

--Beth Evans, beth_evans@platts.com 
--Edited by Richard Rubin, richard_rubin@platts.com

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