my new plug in

You are right. Politics has trumped science. We grow lots of Ethanol Corn here in WI. It causes more pollution and and energy to produce Ethanol than it saves. It is really bad for small engines (lawnmowers etc.) and not good for any ICE. It has less energy per gallon. My MPG goes up by about 2-3 MPG when I use non-ethanol gas. What is odd is that WI now is politically schizophrenic, Voting Liberal for national office but very conservative for State and local. Thus we "sell" our ethanol to the east and west coast while exempting us from the cool aid. Farmers getting rich off of subsidies and mandates while not having to use their own products. Gotta love it !!

 

Ethanol's High Heat Value is 62% that of gasoline. All the math I have seen puts E10 at about a 7% MPG hit over gasoline. I'm still confused what the benafits to anyone but a corn farmers pockets are?

- use more gas period.
- more reliance on gasoline.
- pay more for gas.
- pay more for corn to eat.

My guess is the polution value "per gallon" may be less, but I fail to see how the polution value "per mile" is less.

 

the question is what kind of pollution. Ethanol, as an oxygenate, targets CO (carbon monoxide) pollution specifically. MTBE was supposed to be better, but its seepage into groundwater became problematic and thus it was banned.
Oxygenate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

While I agree with that mindset if we are looking at a polution per gallon varient, again I don't see how it's a viable arguement from a polution per mile perspective. And truthfully that is what matters.

The idea is to offest the usage of Gasoline by 10% with 10% ethanol... But if my MPG drops by 7% I now have to use 7% more gasoline to go the same distance... So it's really not a 10% offset per mile it's much, much less... So the question is in that extremely marginal savings in gasoline usage of for the sake of it we will say 3%. Is the polution put out by that 3% less then the polution put out by the subsodised 10% ethanol... I won't even go beyond that to touch on the fact we creadted an entire industry that is poluting to suport that 3%.

Don't get me wrong I'm not a go green eco nut hugger. I drive a plug-in to pay less on gas and stick it to the man (solar power at home + free charging at work). But one has to be blind to not see the scam the farmers and the governemt ran on us.

 

I should add I'm a drag racer and love Ethanol. It has awesome potential in that industry but it has zero potential in the mainstream gas industry right now.

The major benafits of Ethanol are it's slightly higher Octane rating (around 98-100), it's extremely efficient cooling properties, and it's slightly uncharacterized resistantce to pre ignition thanks to the previous two. Both of which have no benafit to daily driven vechicles.

Then you got the negatives of Ethanol... It absorbs moisture, it's octane drops fairly rapidly, it's extremely inconsistant because of that, it's HHV is 60% of gasoline, thus it's usage is basically twice as much, it's damaging to traditional pumps, lines, injectors and o-rings....

So unless the gas industry can create better storage options at every gas station, find a cost effective means to remove moisture, double gas tank size in every vechicle, revamp fuel delivery systems, find a means to keep it consistant and do it all at a price per gallon that is more then 1/2 what we pay for gasoline then, again whats the point?

Anyway just bitching to bitch at this point!!!!

 

One of the issues in California is vapor pressure. Our "summer blend" gasoline is designed to have a lower vapor pressure, which is more relevant in warmer weather. The evaporation issue is one reason we have "vapor recovery" nozzles on gasoline pumps here, which returns vapors released during pumping back to the underground tank. When people insist on topping off, it also can return some (already metered) liquid gasoline to the underground tank, which does not exactly upset the dealers. I am not sure how ethanol fits into this vapor pressure issue.

 

And of course, the emissions from the significant amount of fuel burned to produce ethanol from corn somehow doesn't come up when the laws are written.

 

Well, I guess the idea is that these emissions are produced elsewhere. This is a big thing people seem to miss when discussing EVs. Yes, charging your car produces emissions. But it produces them far away from the city in which you're driving. Come to Los Angeles on a smoggy day and you might see why this is actually useful.
Also, I don't think the point is that you reduce CO emissions by just 10%, I think the idea is that the additional oxygen in the ethanol provides a greater reduction in CO. So the reduction doesn't come from less gasoline in a gallon but from the chemical reactions that take place during combustion as a result of the added ethanol.
Btw, most of GMs vehicles already support E85 and don't cost anything more, so that problem has already been solved.

 

Let the market decide. Keep government out of propping up weak industries. Will dairy farmers ever get more efficient when each gallon of milk is subsidized? How will green ever become competitive in a free market with government training wheels affixed? Go eco-capitalism! Boo market-spoiling, innovation-suppressing corporate welfare, subsidies and tax breaks. I know, I will use the $2500 tax credit while I lament that I'm adding to our deficit. I'm weak like everybody else. Feeding at the government trough is going to bankrupt the nation. Boy is this thread off topic.

 

I use 10% Ethanol gas because I am forced to living in Oregon. I have no choice as motor fuel
for passenger vehicles in the state of Oregon, at least here in this area is all 10% Ethanol
when you fill up at the pump.

In Longview Washington there is a self serve station that sells 87 Octane "Ethanol Free" gas, which
cost nearly 40 cent per gallon more than gas here at Costco. My MPG's increase 3-5 mpg more
with this gasoline.

Common sense does not apply when people believe that adding 10 to 15% ethanol to gas is saving
the planet and is cost effective.

Even though I have been challenged in life by having to go to public school even I can figure it out
that Ethanol is not cost effective....

 

It does. Just touch the steering wheel buttons and you will see it on the MID. If not, it might be disabled but it is activated by default. Read the manual.

You need to ask the dealer to change reverse beep to a single beep. It's not user configurable without an OBD scanner.

 

Yes, you can get them for electric. They have them at most 3rd party DMV sites.