Bioethanol Road Test - Owning

The Ford Focus FFV starts at £14,845 and is priced between the existing 1.6-litre and 2.0-litre petrol-only models. As with any car in the Focus range, you can order it in LX, Sport, Zetec and Climate trim levels, and you can order from any Ford dealership.

One area where the Focus FFV did let itself down was fuel economy. A tank of bioethanol will only take you about 200 miles and, according to the car's trip computer, we averaged roughly 28mpg on a mixture of faster roads and urban driving.

Ford quotes an official combined fuel consumption of 40.4mpg for the FFV when run purely on petrol, but admits that will drop by up to 25% when you switch to bioethanol.

A litre of biofuel will set you back about 85p, so compared to the average price of unleaded, you're saving just under 6p per litre. Drivers who use bioethanol currently pay 20% less fuel tax than for petrol and diesel, and company drivers will also pay slightly less road tax.

Until recently, owning a biofuel car was not practical, because it was almost impossible to get your hands on the fuel. However, the supermarket chain Morrisons started selling biofuel in 2006 and already has 10 stations stocking the fuel.

So, the future for bioethanol may look bright. Other parts of Europe are already keen on biofuel cars. In Sweden, 80% of all Ford Focus models sold are biofuel-ready, and Renault is claiming that by 2009, 50% of all its petrol-engined cars sold in Europe will be bio-powered.

Currently all the bioethanol sold in the UK is imported from Brazil, but the first two manufacturing plants are now being built in this country, with production starting next year.

The Ford Focus is one of the best small family cars on the market, and the FFV is s a fine replacement for a conventional petrol model. Once more petrol stations stock the biofuel, and if the Government keeps the tax down, bioethanol cars could prove a real hit.