Swedish car engine tuning company BSR Svenska AB has an uphill battle in promoting its new environmentally friendly line of products.

On top of the high cost of developing technology to convert gasoline-powered cars to run on an 85 percent ethanol fuel blend, the company also faces an awareness challenge.

To some, an E85 conversion system seems odd coming from a company that sponsors rally racing cars and whose main products are tuning kits that boost engine output by 50 horsepower, said Magnus Skeppstedt, export manager for BSR.

And with the market flooded with cheap tuning products, conversion systems aren’t necessarily known for their quality, he said.

“We have to fight to show we have a system that works,” Mr. Skeppstedt said.

For BSR, this is isn’t a flippant foray into the world of green technology.  These kits, which reprogram the software in car’s engine and may require changes to the fuel injection system, stem from a decade of independent research and investment as well as an ongoing fight with legislative authorities.

BSR won a victory when the Swedish legislature last July passed a law allowing E85 in gasoline-powered cars with the use of certain conversion kits.

BSR leaders freely admit that the kits have so far required a high investment with little return, but they’re hoping that will change as the energy priorities shift in the U.S. and other markets.

With recent stimulus package signed by President Obama, a new focus on clean energy has emerged that could make the BSR systems even more relevant and financially feasible for customers, Mr. Skeppstedt said.

In view of this opportunity, BSR will visit Savannah for the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce’s bi-annual Entrepreneurial Days conference April 20-22.

Mr. Skeppstedt said BSR hopes to find partners, buyers, distributors or investors at the conference, where one of the main themes is sustainability.

Timing is everything for this product, Mr. Skeppstedt explained during an interview with GlobalAtlanta at the company’s facility in Växjö, Sweden, which bills itself as “Europe’s greenest city.”

If the U.S. adopts sweeping reforms, automakers could start selling “flex-fuel” vehicles - - those that can run on any blend of ethanol and gasoline – on a broader basis, rendering BSR’s product largely obsolete.

“This business will not last forever,” said Mr. Skeppstedt, noting that there is a limited time window when conversion systems will be relevant.  “It’s really the time to do it now.”

But BSR believes the U.S. is just beginning to wake up to environmental initiatives, and the company wants to be ready as more cities and states begin to regulate CO2 emissions.

“When the U.S. starts to move, it often jumpstarts worldwide priorities,” said Rolf Linde, who manages BSR’s environmental technology.

It’s not just the market that BSR has to worry about.  Each conversion system is tied to a specific car model, which means BSR has to choose wisely which cars to sink its development dollars into.  And they have to move quickly before the carmakers change aspects of the model’s engine.

Currently, the systems work mostly for models made by the Swedish automaker Saab, but BSR has developed some that work on specific General Motors models like the Chevrolet Colorado, a light pickup truck.

Because of the unpredictable nature of new cars, BSR will likely focus on popular used cars, possibly offering its conversion systems – priced at around $1,200 – to dealerships that could use the “greening” of their used car fleet as a selling point in this uncertain economic environment.

This would fill a gap that’s currently felt in the car market, Mr. Skeppstedt said.

Without conversion systems, emissions-conscious car buyers for the next few years will have to buy new to get a flex-fuel vehicle, taking on a financial burden that a conversion system could’ve helped them avoid, he said.

Mr. Linde said BSR’s work to replace fossil fuels with renewables in cars has been a long, arduous effort that has put BSR in a unique position among Swedish companies.

While companies in the U.S. spend billions of dollars lobbying to influence legislators, Swedish companies rarely impact policy before it takes shape.

With the help of Malte Sandberg, head of Växjö’s environmental office in the mid-1990s, BSR converted a car before it was explicitly legal to do so.

Mr. Sandberg, whom Mr. Linde calls the “only environmental chief who also drove rally [racing cars],” offered his Volvo as a test case, and they used it for the first conversion. 

He also helped open doors in city government for BSR’s quest to “do something good for the environment,” Mr. Linde said.

Eventually they converted a yellow Saab rally car to E85, winning widespread acclaim and sparking debate at the national level on the viability of E85 conversion systems, he said.

Växjö seems an appropriate place for environmental initiatives to take off.

Bo Frank, the city’s executive mayor, told GlobalAtlanta that Växjö decided to become a role model for sustainability in the early 1990s, realizing that for this community, “economy and ecology were two sides of the same coin.”

“No one was talking about global warming at that time,” Mr. Frank said in an interview at the city government building.

Now, Växjö has undertaken a “fossil fuel free” campaign. The city has cut emissions by 32 percent since the early 1990s, largely because 90 percent of the city’s homes and business are heated by renewable fuel sources like forestry waste products.  The city imposes carbon emissions taxes and soon, Mr. Frank hopes, it will offer free parking for vehicles powered by renewable fuels.  

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