Flex Fuel E85 vs Regular Gas
Posted by Car Dude in Better MPG, Gas Mileage, biofuel, ethanol, fuel economy, gas prices, renewable energy, tags: Cars, corn, E85, environment, ethanol, flex fuel, Gas Mileage, greenhouse gas, renewable energy, smog
Flex Fuel is Cheaper but you get bad gas mileage and you cannot go as far on a tank of gas. What’s the deal with Flex Fuel. You see those big suv’s rocking the little badge on the back, but what exactly is “Flex Fuel.” Well Flex Fuel is also know as E85. The “E” is short for Ethanol which make up 85% of the mix, the rest is gasoline.
Flex Fuel Cars Get Better Fuel Economy – Nope!
Gasoline has a lot of stored energy, but the Alcohol that is contained in Ethanol has less. Since Flex Fuel is mostly Ethanol the result is less bank for the buck. Car that use E85 get 10-15% less fuel economy than their regular brothern. Take for example the GMC Yukon, the Flex Fuel gas mileage is much lower. And I grabbed this from fueleconomy.gov!
At least E85 is cheaper Right?
Flex Fuel is cheaper yes, but you do get much worse fuel economy so you can go farther on a tank of regular gas than E85. So at the end of the day you can hope to save $4 every 1000 miles. Is that enough to sway you in the direction of flex fuel vehicles?
How about the Impact on Mother Earth?
The Environmental Protection Agency says E85gas does indeed lesses Green House gas emissions by over 15%. According to a Smog Reyes study; Ethanol is the only thig that can be mixed with gasoline to help reduce smog pollutants.
That Corn Should Feed the Hungry Rather than Power your Car!
Ethanol is derived from a strain of corn that is used to feed livestock. Well the animals need to eat too, and they do! Ethoanol is made from starch found in the corn and all the byproduct that is left over can still be made into a healthy animal feed.
In conclusion, Flex Fuel Cars have become popular for a few reasons.
-Ethanol is a biofuel which is a renewable source of energy. So when someday we may run out of oil; corn will continue to be grown….hopefully!
-Going Green has had a major influence in the way we think and if we can reduce smog and harmful pollutants through the use of Flex Fuels than this is a DAMN GOOD THING!
Resources:
http://getbettermpg.blogspot.com/2008/08/e85-gas-separating-fact-from-fiction.html
Entries (RSS)
GM ’s sudden stewardship of the environment is simply a way to continue to make gas guzzlers thanks to E85 an extremely inefficient fuel. The CAFE standards call for all car companies to achieve an average MPG for all vehicles. I believe the most recent number is 27 MPG. Well if you make the biggest money off of 10 miles per gallon SUV’s you would hate to say good bye to them wouldn’t you?
The CAFE standards has a loophole, that being that an E85 vehicle operating on E85 miles per gallon are ONLY figured against the actual amount of gasoline in the blend (15%) if you divide 100% fuel by 15% gasoline you get the multiplier to the mpg (666) therefore a gas guzzling 10 MPG SUV is given credit for 66.6 MPG. If you sell one SUV like this you can have 5 vehicles only achieving 20 MPG and this gas guzzling SUV and you average more than 27 MPG overall while not one of their vehicles really met the standard.
GM is not the only one taking advantage of this free ride Ford and Chrysler are too. The big three are heading down the toilet and this is just their hands clinging to the rim.
Thanks for the info. I experienced 20-25% lower gas mileage using E85 in my 2010 5.4 L Avalanche than with regular unleaded. The cost savings of 16% doesn’t nearly make up for the disparity. I’d like to use a sustainable fuel, but the economics just aren’t there.
I must also say that it’s a little disturbing to see the average fuel economy displayed as 12.5 mpg staring back at me on the instrument cluster. I’ll give it a few more tanks, but I suspect I’ll be switching back to regular gasoline soon. A shame…