Does anyone know that for this year testing the EPA will be using gasoline with a 10% Ethanol Blend as most states, and Oregon is one of them, require the 10% Ethanol Blend all year long. It would not be a accurate testing procedure to not take the 10% Ethanol Blend into account. I know for a fact, guranteed, that pure regular grade gas without Ethanol will get increased MPG in our Prius. I know there are some in this forum who believe that the 10% Ethanol does not take a hit in MPG. If that is the case you do not want to have to walk the distance the extra MPG's you get for an entire tank compared to Ethanol gas blend in our Prius. Now I recently read that the Government is considering a 15% Ethanol blend in gasoline, isn't that nice...... alfon
I doubt they'd suddenly change their test procedures. Per The Truth About EPA City / Highway MPG Estimates - Measuring Fuel Economy - Car and Driver
The 15% ethanol blend was approved for all cars 2007 or later. Not sure how they expect to control what goes where but it is the government, so they just pass things and let others sweat the details.
If you think about it though, while you get fewer miles per gallon of "liquid", you are actually using less gas. If you ran pure Ethanol, your MPG would be considerably less (perhaps 35 MPG), but you would not be burning ANY gasoline. I'm willing to take a small hit in mileage if it reduces my oil dependency. Just another way to look at it. No flames please.
But you will be responsible for the burning of a lot of diesel needed to produce that ethanol. Ethanol's carbon savings remains a theoretical goal. The terrible energy balance of current production methods does not present a compelling case for ethanol.
