With only 750 American gas stations providing the corn juice for flex-fuel vehicles, there's more E85 hype than E85. Which is the point collegiate road tripper Mark Pike and his cohorts over at kicktheoilhabit.org decided to make by attempting an E85-only trek across the North American landmass in flex-fuel Crown Vic supplied by the bad mo fo's at FoMoCo. In the PR sense, the trip's a hit. Pike's Vic has garnered a bushel of free publicity for the supporters of fuel coming from Billy Ford's "heartland." Of course, the socio-polticial issues surrounding E85 production, transportation and provision are only slightly less complex than the home assembly instructions for a Bowflex Versatrainer. [Read Mark Hasty's post on E85 economics on tomorrow's TTAC.] A quick call to Mr. Pike revealed that the flex-fuel campaigner is a bit of a piker in terms of the fine print, but props are due. The most socially responsible thing I ever did during my college vacation was making sure that my empties were placed in a proper trash receptacle.
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It’s all good that they are doing a road trip in a Crown Vic with enabled use of E85, but the country is not ready for it, and probably won’t for a long time.
Like the guy stated, “only 750 E85 pumps in America”, yet the Crown Vic still gets a mediocre MPG of 20, i don’t think it’s worth it…….yet.
I believe the best fuel effiecient engines with large displacement are the hemi’s with the MDS that enable 4banger operation. Even better, get a Prius and live with the social putdowns the car envokes.
Hell, even a Corvette C6 gets better MPG (18/28, 6MT) than that Crown Vic on the E85.
Crown Vic on E85 is EPA rated 12/17.
http://www.epa.gov/emissweb/lgcar-06.htm
Go yellow, cough up lots of green.
I have quite a few problems with Mark Pike’s answers, but this article will better explain them than I can.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bizwk/060427/bw20060427493909.html?.v=1
The Corn Lobby strikes again! I don’t see this going anywhere without some new technology or big changes in agriculture.
Its a BS waste of time technology that exists for the benefit of big business like GM and Ford…. not the customer. It saves them CAFE fines and the crappy fuel is a net loss of energy of which you need an ungodly volume because its got less energy released in combustion than my urine after a night of drinking Becks.
heh 20mpg is not that impressive when you are doing a coast to coast road trip. The highway is a place for diesel motors not corn burning hippie juice fueled vehicles.
Shouldn’t that Crown Vic get less mpg when running on E vs when it runs on gass?
liquidflorian- “Shouldn???t that Crown Vic get less mpg when running on E vs when it runs on gass? ”
Yes, it contains only 72% of the energy in gasoline. Just like with diesel, energy content effects mileage. I used Wikipedia for that number.
So JSForbes; so the mpg is less the 20 when its farting around of E?
That sucks even more….
Yes, as starlightmica stated it should get 12/17 on E85 rather than 17/25 it would get on gas (if I am reading the epa site correctly). They got 20 while traveling on E85 which means they could have gotten a little bit more on gas.
Thanks, I must have missed that completely….
Just remember — Brazil is foriegn oil independent — all 180,000,000 of them.
I just went to KTOH website and entered my zipcode (SW Florida). The nearest E85 station is 427 miles and one state away. And there is only one in all of Georgia.
GM and others can advertise and pat themselves on the back all they want about E85, but if it is not available, why bother? Just for PR, I guess.
Brazil uses sugar cane to produce E85. Their land costs less (think ex-rain forest), the crop can be grown all year, labor costs are low. etc. There is no substantive parellel between Brazil’s E85 production and the US’. Our best bet in that regard would be to import Brazilian E85.
There’s a 50 cent/gallon tax on imported ethanol to protect corn farmers as well as Archer Daniels Midland. I saw somewhere that the US uses almost 20 times as much fuel than Brazil, but evey now and then the climate ruins a sugar cane crop or two with resulting ethanol shortages.
E85 vehicles are figured in under CAFE for the amount of gasoline they would use if they actually burned E85. A pickup truck that gets 15/20 by gas only “uses” 15 percent of that and so gets calculated at 30+ mpg. So much for real mpg improvements.
C&D ethanol article
E85 is the perfect synergy of car companies and the corn lobby. Car companies get a free CAFE pass for all their gas (and E85) guzzling SUVs and corn growers see increased demand. Even oil companies get a little something as the considerable energy required to make E85 certainly does not come from E85.
But it has the desired effect: Joe public thinks that something is being done about our foreign energy dependence and can get back to worrying about other really important issues such as flag burning, steroid use in MLB and maybe if homosexuals have too many civil rights.
Personally, I’m just amused that I work about 2 blocks down the road from the concrete cornfield in the picture.
Sixty Minutes (the lads who assassinated Audi) did a piece on E85. They visited some very clever farmers in the midwest who had built their own ethanol factory. There was a long shot of water vapour pouring from the stack and a VERY brief shot of a natural gas buner about four feet in diameter, capable of burning a humungous amount of gas. No one asked the questions:
“How much energy does it take to produce ethanol?’
and
“Wouldn’t it be better to just liquify the natural gas and use it directly”
Answers: Much more than you gain and Yes.
I got 21mpg in mixed city/hwy driving in my test Grand Marquis. I’d expect 26mpg if I set the cruise at 65mph, cranked up the A/C and hit the interstate.
Granted I’m one of those guys who looks far enough ahead to coast more than brake, but still…20mpg highway on E85? That’s a huge drop.
philbailey –
Yup, and let’s not forget that natural gas supplies are even tighter than oil. When those prices go up, coal will likely be the primary fuel for ethanol production, and then there goes the clean air benefit.
I see from the next article that there’s “The Truth About E85” series playing here right now – good!