"March 14 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp., whose Prius is the world's best-selling gasoline-electric car, may also offer hybrids able to run on fuel that's mostly ethanol." "Toyota is studying a so-called flex-fuel hybrid, Jim Press, the Japanese automaker's North American president, said today in Washington. He didn't specify a model or when such a vehicle would go on sale." "Toyota, the world's second-largest automaker, said in January it would sell a flex-fuel version of its Tundra pickup truck able to run on E85 by 2009." http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...amp;refer=japan
If Toyota does this, it'll raise their CAFE #s even higher because of the whole flex-fuel CAFE incentive scam (as I'd term it). http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/ne...ethanol_ov3.htm is one place w/an explanation of why I call it a scam. A flex fuel Prius would probably be counted as a 80 or 90+ mpg vehicle for CAFE purposes. <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(htmlspinnr @ Mar 15 2007, 11:15 PM) [snapback]406639[/snapback]</div> Why? Have you looked up the closest E85 station to you? For you, the closest publicly accessible one appears to be >140 miles away per http://www.e85fuel.com/. It's useless for me since there's a whopping ONE publicly accessible E85 station in CA and it's 461 miles away.
If they add the capability for no extra cost, I wouldn't complain, but since I'm staunchly anti-ethanol, I would not support adding this capability if it means that the price of the vehicle goes up.. To me, the equation of higher fuel cost and lower fuel economy offered by ethanol simply does not work, not to mention the hidden costs of the ethanol economy: farm equipment, fertilizer, processing, also the costs of diverting corn stocks from the food chain towards fuel production.. E85 is simply a political game being played and IMO has no real merits..
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(cwerdna @ Mar 16 2007, 06:47 AM) [snapback]406683[/snapback]</div> The beauty of "might" make grain fueled cars is just that. Might. My hope is the "might-NOT" aspect. As stated above, "scam" is a kind word for this energy inefficient / energy wasting ponzi scheme. GM uses it to hide the true poor mileage of it's gas guzzlin' fleet vehicles. Revise EPA computations? How 'bout revising the E85 mileage scam.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(cwerdna @ Mar 16 2007, 03:47 AM) [snapback]406683[/snapback]</div> It's an issue of supply and demand. There's no demand for E85 w/o a supply of vehicles that can consume it. Not that a single Prius would make a difference, but add it to the stack of E85 capable GM, Ford, and Chrysler vehicles already on the road and they may have something. I didn't say my reasoning was sound, but rather that my purchase would be sending a positive message to Toyota that I'm interested in the technology. It's the exact same reason I own two Toyota Prius. I believe in the technology and I put my wallet where my beliefs were. I'm saying that I'd be willing to do it again if they included Flex Fuel in the next major revision. I'd then start using E85 once it became available in the Phoenix area, assuming it was economically feasable.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(htmlspinnr @ Mar 16 2007, 10:35 AM) [snapback]406851[/snapback]</div> There's plenty of supply. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/04/...659_page2.shtml mentions "today there are about five million flex-fuel cars on American highways. A third of them were made by GM." GM mentions at http://www.gm.com/company/onlygm/energy/flexfuel.html they have 2 million of them on the road in the US. http://www.e85fuel.com/e85101/flexfuelvehicles.php lists the models that are compatible.
You whats nice about "flex-fuel" vehicles? is just that. they are flexible and dont HAVE to run on E85. I have a station less than a mile from me. I will definately be considering getting one from Toyota when they offer it.
