Ethanol, also called ethyl alcohol or grain alcohol, is made by fermenting sugar or starch. Ethanol produces fewer organic and toxic emissions than gasoline, and ethanol-burning engines are more efficient than those that run on gasoline. It can be produced from a variety of renewable resources, such as corn and grain. Researchers are investigating how to make ethanol from the wood and plant cellulose found in biomass, which could make ethanol economically viable as well as ecologically sound. Current vehicles can be modified to run as flexible-fuel vehicles that take either gasoline or ethanol.
 
Ethanol is quite expensive. Producing ethanol in large volumes would drive up the prices of both the fuel and its source crops. Dedicating huge amounts of cropland to fuel production could have negative ecological effects, including the production of greenhouse gases. Ethanol vehicles also have only 75%-90% of the range of a gasoline vehicle with the same size fuel tank.
 
Ethanol has been drunk in fermented beverages since ancient times. In the modern era, technology has made it cheap to distill ethanol and use it industrially. In the 1880s, one of Henry Ford's first vehicles was powered by ethanol. During the 1970s oil crisis, Brazil initiated a switch to ethanol, and 4 million Brazilian vehicles now use ethanol, for 62% of the country's motor fuel. However, Brazil is currently hampered by the high price of sugar and the low price of petroleum, which mean that it is now economically inefficient to use sugar to make ethanol.
 
In the U.S., ethanol is currently produced with the help of a tax credit from the government, and is sold as E85 (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline). GM manufactured Chevrolet Luminas to run on E85 in 1992 and 1993. Since 1995, Ford and GM have been selling flexible-fuel pickup trucks.		  
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