Way OT here, but months ago we drove a rental truck across country. It was an E85 flex-fuel rig. We stopped someplace in Corn Country and filled up on ‘cheap fuel’ (E85) instead of regular E10 because it happened to be available. Instead of getting 10-11 mpg as averaged for the first part of the trip using E10, the mileage dropped to 6-7 mpg - a drop of about 25% in mpg over a relatively flat section of interstate. Came back up to 11 mpg or so once we filled back up with E10 at the next fill up (which came quickly after fewer miles per tank using E85). This reflects very well the known difference in energy content between ethanol and gasoline. Never bought E85 again, as it was very slow to accelerate the moving truck to freeway speed using that fuel, and zero advantage in cost/mile. At the prices mentioned below ($2.45/$3.01), the energy content is almost exactly the same per $ for E85 and E10 (‘regular gas’). In other words, as we found out during our real-world example, if you were to place either in your flex-fuel vehicle, they would have virtually the same cost-per-mile. So, one is not ‘way cheaper than the other’ when considering actual miles per $. Performance wise, I’d consider E85 inferior to E10 based on around 250 miles of suffering with it, and wondering why the gas needle was dropping so quickly.
Tom Keenan > On Nov 15, 2017, at 3:27 PM, Jorg Brown via EV <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Tue, Nov 14, 2017 at 3:51 PM, Cor van de Water via EV <[email protected]> > wrote: >> Flex-fuel vehicles are notorious for *never* running on anything but >> regular gas, > > What?? That's bonkers. At least where I live, E85 is way cheaper ( see > https://goo.gl/maps/FCHNRzSm7TF2 ) - $2.45 per gallon versus $3.01 per > gallon for regular unleaded. > > On Tue, Nov 14, 2017 at 11:00 AM, Mark Abramowitz via EV <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> I don't get why people get so excited about PIHs. >> >> California data shows a big problem with folks not even bothering to >> charge them. >> > > Really? I was just reading > https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1102004_why-isnt-the-2016-chevy-volt-a-flex-fuel-plug-in-hybrid-that-can-use-e85-ethanol > and it said: > >> And Chevrolet's data on driving and usage patterns for more than >> 80,000 Volts indicates that nine out of every 10 trips taken in the >> longer-range 2016 Volt will be powered exclusively from grid >> electricity used to recharge the battery. > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20171115/76a9aa02/attachment.html> > _______________________________________________ > UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub > http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org > Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) > _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
