Running E85

78 stations out of probably thousands in the state? I guess that's why I never happened to notice any. I'd have to go out of my way to find one.

 

^^^
A couple of years ago in CA, per e85fuel.com, there was a whopping one publicly accessible E85 station in the entire state. I'm pretty sure it was Pearson Fuels in San Diego, a whopping 452 miles away from me, one way.

 

At least there are more now. I put in my CA zip code and 15 show up within 200 miles of me. There are 4 in my city (San Jose w/a population of ~950K) w/only 1 semi-close to me.

I agree that it would be good to have non-petroleum based fuel sources or ones that we don't need to import. Unfortunately, it seems we run into the problem of the debate of higher corn prices: using it as food for ourselves or livestock vs. vs. burning it.

CNG seems like a reasonable bridge fuel. There also need to be more EVs. Utilities and governments need to encourage them rather than discourage them.

 

They said mpg was lower in the gen I prius using e85. This isn't surprising since the energy content is lower, but in this experiment it appears that e85 is more efficient. Since there have been major changes to the engine in the genIII, I doubt this is still the case. From your observations on your other vehicles, it appears that they were not tuned well for gasoline, so you may have gotten more of an improvement.

Yes, that surprised me. They measured in service mode on a dyno. Once you allow the hsd to work you can't get that extra power out at the wheels. The other thing I didn't think about, is the prius may be using the same injectors as its otto counter part, which means there is enough flow from e85. This is probably programmed into the closed loop, so the computer will work fine too.

The gen III prius is extremely low emissions, and the new cooled egr was only introduced with it in 2009. I would not expect e85 to actually make much difference. It would make a difference in start up routines, and a sensor for fuel type as well as reprogramming might help reduce emissions further.

That Minnesota State study clearly stated they did not test for long term damage. You shouldn't run e85 in a prius unless you replace those parts that will have undue wear, or are willing to have the repair costs. I would expect that E85 increases evaporative emissions, and it is likely toyota did not want to redesign the fuel tank, filler/vapor control, etc. These may be expensive items to replace if alcohol damages them. Again this is pure speculation.

 

Here in Alberta we also have some "blender pumps", but we don't have E85. Most newer Husky/Mohawk stations use blender pumps and two tanks. One contains their 96 octane "up to 10% ethyl alcohol premium" fuel and the other contains their "up to 10% ethyl alcohol 87 octane" fuel. You can buy four grades, 87 octane, 89 octane, 92 octane, and 96 octane rated fuel. Prices bump up rapidly with the increase of octane rating.
We have a plant here that makes the ethyl alcohol (it's beside Baseline road and Anthony Henday for those locals interested). Our Amateur radio site is beside it and I watch tanker trucks entering with 90% loads to "finish" the fuel with ethyl alcohol (top up). It mixes as they drive to the stations I guess.

-I- use the Husky/Mohawk premium in my lawnmower and other engine powered appliances because it is much more resistant to fuel degradation with time (some of those devices might be forgotten for 6 months or longer though I do try to drain them all before winter sets in). The drained fuel goes into Pearl. The rest of the time Pearl uses the least expensive "regular" fuel I can find, now always with "up to 10% ethyl alcohol". The Provincial Govt. forced all "regular" fuel to use ethyl alcohol about a year ago with almost no notice from the public. The station I buy my fuel at (Hughes Petroleum) posted notices on the pumps, claiming if you didn't want to have ethyl alcohol in your fuel you could buy the premium.

I did notice my mileage drop a bit, though before this I was using the "up to E10" from Husky/Mohawk, and only switched to the Hughes a few months before they also started supplying "up to E10". I have not yet removed the air cleaner to see how effective the alcohol is in keeping Pearl's intake clean.

Yup, Pearl is an appliance, running without problems. Just add fuel and change the oil once in a while.

 

How about...nah, you'll never go for it. Ok, I bite and I'll give it a try, but how about having more economical vehicles?

Just a though. But if more people bought more efficient vehicles you wouldn't need to import as much oil from Venezuela and Iran and all would be well in the world?

Nah, better we carry on with our 12 mpg guzzlers and just run them on something else instead and if that fails we could always heat up that tar sands stuff in Canada.

Your grandkids and their kids and going to just love our generation!

 

Ohhhh, sarcasm!

Hey, global warming has it's upsides. More entertaining violent storms. Warmer (on average) winters. Flooding out those pesky poor people.

Just kidding. Notice the insurance companies are now lobbying to reduce carbon emissions and to have people start preparing for disasters? There's a reason. They could loose a bundle.

 

...you can change your Prius name to EtOH (which is what I thought you were playing off of)

 

...you know, ethanol

 

2012 GenIII Prius for Brazil to be E25. Imports from Japan are Government restricted to 150/month. Available starting second half of 2012. May have a 73KW motor and 32mph max in EV. They have been testing GenII E25 Prius for several years.

Best Source: Toyota anuncia híbrido Prius no Brasil em 2012; teto do preço é de R$ 127 mil - 06/10/2011 - Da Redação

 

There are quite a few countries that limit exports. Malaysia is another. Taxes are about the same as the purchase cost, so it doubles the price. They are all trying to encourage having the cars built locally. Let me rephrase that. They are all -STRONGLY- trying to encourage having the cars built locally.

 

Running e85 on other cars that are factory tuned for regular gas is no new thing. I'm not a tuner but I do know the right way to run e85 is to have the ECU or car's computer tuned for it as it does have to run leaner (more fuel to air) to maintain proper ratios. I come from the Subaru world (I have an STI converted Forester, my sleeper =) and use alternative mix of fuel now with Methanol injection for over 40k miles and looking to remove that system for a simpler e85 tuned setup (A lot of e85 pumps on Long Island where I live). That being said I'm trying to find out if we can tune the Prius cars ICE like other cars do. I know people are able to tune the 1.8 carollas which should be a similar engine. I've already emailed a few tuners with no response yet =(. Going to start picking up the phone at some point.

If you read through this there are many Subarus (along with other turbo cars like Mitsubishi Evos) that have been running HIGH hp/tq cars for thousands of miles with no issues. Us tuner guys love the fuel because it's equiv to 105 octane and is cheap =).

Some interesting info on the FAQ here and some crazy numbers for Subaru tuning enthusiasts =):
The E85 Army Thread - NASIOC

Also, note the linked article / study linked earlier in this thread is proof to me it's worth tuning for e85. Check out the section on HP / Torque. I believe if properly tuned you could squeeze out more power:
http://www.greenenergynetwork.com/media/studies/prius-e85.PDF

 

Well he doesn't say what his MPG actually is because if it is low then the ethanol will be less of a factor ...

I do not think this is proportional ... if your driving sucks you waste so much "energy" already ... the ethanol less energy density will have a LOT less impact.

I am sure someone can even use math to show this...

Cheers

 

I can not find 1 vendor with a product to tune the ECU or even provide a piggy back solution for the Prius. With the amount sold you'd figure there might have been a need or aftermarket effort towards it!? Unbelievable =). The oddest cars in the world that sell no where near as many cars as the Prius can have some kind of software to access the ECU. With things like being able to manipulate EV limits, MG1, MG2, and ICE etc you'd figure someone would have put some effort into it.