Although I would prefer gasoline that is not cut with ethanol, the closest public source available to us (or any where we frequent) is 50 miles away...so there it is.
Join the crowd...I estimate at least 50% of Prius owners live in EPA reformulated gasoline regions where by law E0 is not allowed. Looks like Maine just has a small section on the southwest portion that mandates the EPA RFG. So you can use Pure-Gas.org to look for E0 in the non-RFG portion, as you probably know. Not sure exactly your spot on the Maine map, but if you are concerned with clean fuel, you could make sure you fill-up on reformulated gasoline which is lower energy but probably a little cleaner and with adequate additives and be sure to buy TopTierGas.com gas. Usually however, to get better MPG, my goal is usually to fill-up on non-RFG when I am on the highway outisde of my region. Within RFG zones, there is no benefit for Mid Grade or Premium. Outside of RFG could possibly see a better MPG. For example BP E0 silver (if avail) could be decent MPG energy content. Prius is designed for E10 so there is NO problem using it in a Prius. Prius is designed for Regular. I recently read (in recent Consumer Reports I think) that some other cars (non Toyota) with fancy fuel injection and turbo charging are having plugging problems and there is a suggestion to use E0...but I stress that is not Prius, which has essentially zero reported problems with E10. Also more and more manufacturers (including Toyota) seem to be joining the TopTierGas.com bandwagon, so make sure you are using that. GasBuddy.com now shows a logo on those staions that are TopTierGas.com members.
Huh? Where did I say ethanol was "the work of the devil"? Great for Brazil, they can use pure ethanol in their fuel systems. So can Indy cars. But I wouldn't want to put E100 in a Prius. The video helped. So other than going to someplace like Mobil or Shell and using Octane 87, can I do something else like add Techron and Stabil, to every other fill-up? Generally I go through a tank each month or two.
Please be careful when editing your quotes. I did NOT say the above. I think "top tier" is just marketing hype. I use gas from whatever station has it the cheapest and put in a can of Techron at each oil change.
No there is no need to add any additives, unless you are going to a no-name station that you think might not be adding enough detergents, then a Techron dose might make sense. I have 140000 miles on a Gen2 running E10 never added anything to the fuel. As I say, the EPA Reformulated gasoline, if you are in that region, tends to be a quite clean fuel and quite uniform among stations. Usually it's easy to select a TopTierGas.com station in the RFG zones because it seems the bigger companies focus on that market. If you get outside of a RFG zone, at least in Virginia, then its more smaller companies, less TopTierGas.com statons, and possibly a little more potential for quality variations as Congress/EPA may allow a little more leeway to smaller companies. But generally in any case there is no particular need for additives in the fuel of a Prius. You could do TopTier every third fill-up if you thought you needed to hedge.
Correct, Ethanol does not attract water, it will not pull it in from across the room. If water does enter the fuel tank (either station storage tank or your cars tank), and condenses into a water droplet that falls into the fuel, then yes, alcohol will absorb water. My 10 Prius op manual says 87 octane OR HIGHER. When it was available here, (first 4 years) it did slightly better mpg on 89 octane E10, compared to 87 octane E0.
