Ethanol is a little harder to vaporize in the wintertime, so by increasing the gasoline a little bit it helps to vaporize and start a little better.
Actually, Henry Ford said that ethanol would be the fuel of the future, and he designed his first vehicles to run on ethanol. Obviously that didn't happen, but ethanol has been around for a long time.
I know that China is looking at ethanol and I think India is looking at it.