Gas Prices

Oxygen sensors means the car can burn the E85. The amounts of fuel going in are out of spec from the gasoline fuel maps in the ECU, so the check engine light will come on. The injectors likely can't allow the full flow of E85 required at high engine loads.

In addition to the long term potential harm to rubbers and plastics, the alcohol, more likely the water with it, can damage steel parts.

The 2000 flex-fuel Ranger had larger injectors and stainless steel fuel system, in addition to ethanol compatible plastics, in comparison to the non-flex-fuel model.

 

Only flex fuel cars and my Cobalt, Volt, 2000 Honda Insight and a bunch of others.

There honestly isn’t any excuse why we can’t use e85 in any modern car and it’s unfortunate they aren’t all required to be flex fuel given the distinct possibility we may need to run a naphtha + methanol mix in the near future given our lack of refineries. (Both are still about $1.50/gallon at bulk as far as I can tell)

The difference between an e85 and non-e85 car of the same model is an ethanol sensor and a different fuel map, some cars like my Volt already have an ethanol map and need a $25 sensor.
Long Gone are the days of FFV getting a unique fuel system.

For all practical purposes I have found all 2001+ cars can run a half tank of e85

Ethanol material compatibility is pretty much all or nothing, if it works with e10, it is also compatible with e85.

It’s rarely been worth running e85 but at today’s prices I’ll run a half tank in all my cars.

Worth noting bobwilson4web has Prius tests on e85

 

E85 will drop your gas mileage. Alcohol burns at about twice the rate as gasoline.

 

When comparing and trading off different fuels, raw MPG is not the top metric of concern.

 

what is?

 

Some blends of ethanol and gasoline, in some cars, have had a better mile per btu efficiency than straight gas.

Cost per mile.

 

huh ?

which car gets better mpg with ethanol blends than pure, wonderful, gasoline ?

 

A gallon of ethanol has 30% less energy/btu content than a gallon of gasoline. The stoichiometric air–fuel ratio of ethanol is about 2/3 that of gasoline.

There were reports on this forum of people buying/using 100% gasoline (E0) and getting better gasoline mileage. Of course the better mpg didn't offset the higher cost of it.

If everyone could switch to E85, there wouldn't be near enough of it to meet demand, and the price of it would skyrocket too. Not a solution to the problem.

 

The combustion reaction in an ICE is a complex one. In the 30% to 40% range of ethanol, some cars managed to turn a higher portion of the reduced energy content into motion than the cars running straight gas. I can't say why. Maybe the cooling effect of the ethanol improved engine efficiency, or that engine could make better use of the higher octane. Could be multiple reasons.

An engine made for E85 would be more efficient than the low compression gasoline engine that simply gets a different ECU program. Just using a higher compression one for flexfuel cars would have netted better results.

 

Cost per distance is one already mentioned, carbon (or just fossil carbon) emitted or crude oil pumped out of the ground per distance traveled would be others.

If MPG was the sole metric, nobody would use E10 / E15 / E85 due to their lower scores on that metric, even though they score better on those other measures. Or possibly could do so, depending on just how the other components are produced.

 

Higher compression means thermodynamically higher efficiency, but higher combustion temperatures and the result is higher NOx emissions. I don't think you can go there with emissions regulations being what they are.

 

?

15-30% more for me

$3 x 1.30 = $3.90 worst case, still saves money over e10


Now methanol is twice but it’s $1.50 a gallon

 

The majority of cars are now high compression direct injection. It's how ICE cars have been improving their fuel economy. With the higher ethanol blends, the alcohol's evaporative cooling effect can lower cylinder temperatures.

I'm not calling for a switch to ethanol. I'd like to see other alternative fuels have a chance. But if we are going to use ethanol, let's make the best use of it.

 

What's the highest alcohol/Exx content you can run in a Prime, according to Toyota? Of course, I'm averaging 125 mpg with charging the car, so even with the high price of gas, I'm not buying that much of it.

Brazil probably did the most with biofuels. It never got close to replacing gasoline. Read the Wikipedia article. No way we make enough here to get even close to what Brazil did/does, and they use sugar cane instead of more expensive corn to make ethanol.

 

15% ethanol MAX. In my region almost all regular gas contains 10% ethanol. It is very hard to find anything higher or lower. Although there have been some stations stated to carry ethanol-free premium gas, I have never seen any gas station that carries E30, E50, or E85.

 

We still burn off and loose 30-40% of natural gas production due to “not being economical to recover “

We shouldn’t realistically allow NG to be burnt off directly from all the Dakota wells and instead make methanol on site in the remote areas, reforming NG to methanol is simple and cheap, could then start dumping a small percentage of methanol into pump gas offsetting ethanol for other uses.

 

which cars ?

 

The study I was thinking about was an old one. IIRC, the Ford(flexfuel and regular) and Toyota models took advantage of the increased ethanol content, and the GM's did not. This was before direct injection came back to the market.

The reported study here looked at flex-fuel cars. Study Finds That Higher Ethanol Blends Result in Improved Energy Efficiency in Flex-Fuel Engines, Partially Offsetting Reduced Energy Density of Fuel - Green Car Congress

Plenty of studies doing direct testing with small engines in a lab. This one is preprint, but was the first I found that looked at ethanol concentrations above 20%. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349405751_Effect_of_Ethanol-Gasoline_Blends_on_SI_Engine_Performance_and_Emissions

 

California will investigate why it has the highest gas prices. Here’s what we already know

California charges $1.05 per gallon in fuel taxes, including a $0.30 to $0.40 per gallon mystery tax that nobody seems to know what it's for, according to the news article.

 

good on them