Here are two takes on this topic.

Paul
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http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/...ess/toyota.php

http://online.wsj.com/article_print/...024310060.html

 

That's weird, earlier Toyota said reluctantly that they would only build flex-fuel vehicles if they saw the great need for it...

 

I thought something was posted here about 4 months ago that said in 2008 all Toy cars would run on E85?

 

E85 cars impact barely .02% of the world's dependance on petroleum. It looks good on TV, though.

 

Its easier for auto manufacurers to make cars that can use regular fuel and e85 than it is for the oil companies to make gas stations with e85 and no cars to use them. Thats why it impacts such a small amount of the consumption. It has to start somewhere and the more cars on the road that can use the fuel, the more oil companies will look into making e85 fill up stations.

 

e85 is overrated....it reduces gas mileage by somewhere around 20%

the actual reason there is any incentive to do this is because it allows them to wiggle around the regulations on epa mpg....basically when a company reports to the epa they need to have a certain average in order to not pay hefty fines....e85 though allows them to report on only that 15% gasoline in the mixture so the mpg estimates on the gasoline portion skyrocket and it boosts that companies mpg average very easily...thats why GM is such a big proponent because it allows them to sneak past those requirements on trucks...why toyota needs this I dont know they may just want to do it for the image....

 

If they do this, there needs to be more e85 pumps, I went online to look and there's only pumps on bases.

 

I've always heard that e85 imporves mileage, not just because its 15% gasoline either......ethanol burns hotter and cleaner then gas, so it can make more hp for less fuel=better mileage

there are some e85 stations around, and ethanol is running like 2 a gallon, better compared to 3 for gasolne....demand will come around, it's a temporary solution

 

ethanol has fewer BTU's than a gallon of conventional gasoline... butanol is lower too, but not as pathetically low (in comparison to gasoline). Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

This is true.
While it does burn cleaner, it doesnt have the energy. So it does need more to make the same power in the same car.

While the mileage per gallon might be lower, the ethanol fuel will eventually be cheaper and it will be completely supplied from US sources. Thats the big benefit.

Look at brazil, since there 1970's fuel crisis (I think it was) they have been completely redoing the whole country to run off domestic ethanol produced by there sugar cane farms. I think last I heard in 10 more years they wont require ANY outside sources of fuel to run the cars OR homes.

 

All most cars require to run E85 is a sensor in the fuel line and a reflash of the ECU. Total cost per car to install during manufacture-- about a dollar.

 

Where arethe E85 gas stations? lol There's no need to invest and produce a product if only a very small percent of the country is able to use it.

 

I dont know about the east coast but they have stations in the midwest. Mainly in larger cities.

 

eventually is a very generic term....bear in mind that while given a proper amount of time to support the production and storing of the quantities needed to support our usage.....that proper amount of time has got to be well beyond 10-15 years or more....in that time frame technology should be well beyond the need for ethanol....and chance are ethanol prices will not drop below that of gasoline for a long long time because gasoline prices in the short term are not set by oil prices or anything of that nature they are set by supply and demand....so you can pretty safely bet the same people setting the gasoline prices will be setting the e85 prices as well...as high as they think we are willing to pay for it

e85 does not generate as much energy as said so more will be required to burn to create the same force, hence the 20% mpg deficiency....from what i understand though performance is not harmed at all.

 

Don't they need to redo the lines and tank to be able to handle the different chemistry of a dominately ethanol-based fuel? Or is the current materials used enough?

I agree, it doesn't cost much, but it still does require some changes

 

bio dieseal

 

Ethanol is caustic to standard gasoline lines and with prolonged use will destroys those lines from everything I have read. Also there have been reports I have read that Indiana has plans for 12 ethanol production plants to be built in the near future. Currently there is one ethanol production facility here in Indiana and it is estimated to produce 100million gallons a year. By that rationale, ethanol will get much cheaper.

Lastly, doesn't the IRL use E85 in the Indy cars?

 

if you figure that there will still be limited places to get them and the cars available to get them will increase the demand will increase greatly somewhere along the line...and if you factor in the 100million gallons a year works out to say 300k gallons per day...which seems like a lot....except when compared to the something like 250-300 MILLION GALLONS of gasoline per day used....thats not a whole lot...now add those 12 other plants meaning 1.2 billion per year....is about 4 million per day....which still only makes that around 1% of total consumption....

i dont see this getting much cheaper than gasoline anytime soon....although i do like the idea of reducing our dependence on middle eastern oil even .1%

 

i sell cars.... and i can tell you that E85 is a good idea but right now it is terrible... it costs more than gas and you are looking at losing 30% of your gas mileage. not to mention that out of 165,000 yes.... one hundred and sixty five thousand gas stations, there are only 685 E85 compatable stations nationwide that is only .415% of the entire US... now i am in the midwest and we have 2 gas stations, that's it, so you can do the math yourselves and see that this system, although a step in the right direction for detroit, is still very very flawed and inefficient at this point in time.

 

Ethanol is not currently economical for consumers because of the 50 cent a gallon tarriff on ethanol (allegedly meant as a benefit for corn farmers, but really a benefit for big oil). Ethanol would cost less than gas without that tarriff. If Congress really gave a rats ___ about the air quality they'd get rid of that tax.

Compounding the problem for consumers is that mileage with ethanol is worse than gasoline.

Despite that, its still better for the environment than gasoline because the emissions are vastly better than gasoline, and the refining process to make ethanol is better for the environment too.

Biodiesel does not have these problems, and it works with any existing diesel engine (although if your diesel is not fresh off the dealer's lot you will need a new fuel filter - the biodiesel acts like a solvent and tends to clean all the sludge off the bottom of the fuel tank) and both its tailpipe emmissions and refining emmisions are better.

Right now most ethanol is made from corn, but there is a new celluosic ethanol that can be made from the whole stalks of corn - stalks, leaves, cobs, the whole thing. Considering that this corn is not for human consumption, there's also a savings in that no pesticides or fertilizers are needed.

With widespread biodiesel and ethanol use, the US could be fully petroleum-independent. What we've got left in the ground is enough. Not to mention Canada is sitting on vast untapped oil sands. The production capacity is not really there (with oil sands, its more like a mining operation than a drilling operation) but at an economical extraction rate, what's there will last a century or so.

Considering that this is an auto enthusiast's forum, resistance to these new technologies (clean fuels, hybrids, etc) will be high. When the day comes that someone in a hybrid ethanol-electric starts to win drag races against gas-powered cars, the attitudes will change in a hurry.

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