I live in Tampa Bay Florida and I am noticing more and more gas stations have stickers on the pumps saying that the gasoline consists of up to 10% ethenol. I hate to sound like a moron, (but at times its easy for me to do) but should I worry about having up to 10% ethenol poured in my tank? It is getting harder and harder here for me to find a station that doesn't those notices. Any help would be appericated, thanks!!! Brad Tampa Bay Florida
There's absolutely nothing to worry about. That's all I have ever used in my Prius. That's over 96,400 miles with my 2004. .
Nothing technically, but gas mileage will suffer with more Ethanol, which is about 70% as efficient as gasoline. So with the blend, your car will still get 97% of the performance of gasoline. But 10-15% blend is now pretty standard.
E-10 gasoline in Jacksonville, FL Here in Jacksonville, and across FL, Hess finally went to 10% ethanol since about January. I've been avoiding Hess since then, and still make it to Shell, Texaco, and Racetrac stations, which have no ethanol at this time. I haven't stopped off at a BP or Chevron station yet to see if they have 10% ethanol.
E10 is or soon will be universal in and around large US cities because it burns cleaner. Any car from the last 10 years or more can use it without harm. If you stress about getting 3% less MPGs take comfort from knowing that the injectors and catalytic converter will always be clean.
E10 contains 96.5% the energy of straight gasoline. Calculate yourself. Ethyl alcohol contains 21.1 Mjoules per litre. Gasoline contains 32 Mjoules per litre (on average). .9 times 32 plus .1 times 21.1 all divided by 32. E10 will eliminate any liquid water that gets into your fuel tank (it "dissolves" into the ethyl alcohol and is burned). E10 eliminates the need to add MTBE to the gas. MTBE is a bad groundwater pollutant. E10 eliminates the need to add Techron to the gas. It is also a groundwater pollutant. Ethyl alcohol, if spilled into the groundwater, is a naturally occurring chemical in the environment. The only real negative is if proper measures aren't taken, any water that is dissolved into it can corrode the E10 storage tank. This was solved years ago. The ethanol can be made from low grade wheat or corn, or even grass, giving farmers another lucrative market for their crops. Something they need. Toyota states in the owners manual that E10 is fine for use in the Prius.
It is unlikely that E>10 will ever be the only fuel available. The economics of ethanol make it so. Instead of stressing about this, spend some effort on convincing your legislators to end ethanol production subsidies and import duties.
E-10 probably does hurt your mileage, but significantly so?? not really. i have used E-10 exclusively (only thing available here for YEARS!) and dont have a problem with it.
