Consumeraffairs.com reports that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has rejected a request from Ralph Nader's Public Citizen advocacy group to revoke some of Ford's Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) credits. Public Citizen claimed that 2003 – '05 Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable vehicles "do not perform up to standards when fueled with E85." Public Citizen argued that an unknown number of these 228k Flex Fuel Fords wouldn't start when filled with corn juice. What's more, some of the E85-fed Taurus engines would stall, creating a safety hazard. NHTSA demurred, saying that E85-related engine stalling was "rare." And anyway, simple repairs fixed the problem. While the issue clearly relates to Ford's engineering prowess, the idea that a tankful of E85 can make a car fail to start or stall probably isn't an idea that the Renewable Fuels Association would like to see widely disseminated. You're welcome.
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Ain’t that the truth.
Mr Farago,
Well, I own a Fiat Palio 1.0 (with all of 65 hp, Yipeee!!) that runs on E25 (75% gasoline, 25% alcohol), which is what passes for regular “gasoline” in Brazil or 100% ethanol (E100?) or any mixture of the above. There are differences when running the car depending on fuel. When it has a tankful of ethanol, starts are harder in the morning (due to low temperatures), the engine is noisier and harsher at higher speeds, and it runs less smoothly, it “fidgets” more at lower speeds. All in all a coarser experience. Advantages are that the engine runs “cleaner” with less possibility of carbonization and subsequent formation of sludge. So theoretically the engine can last longer. Of course, less CO2 but I believe this is offset by higher formation of NOX (like diesels).
Consumption in my car (and I live in a VERY hilly city where steep grades are commonplace and a part of every drive plus I also do a lot of short runs during the day so others’ mileages are surely better than mine) is anywhere from 5 km/l to 7,5 km/l in the city with alcohol. With gasoline things improve and I get from 8 to 10 km/l in city driving. For highway with alcohol anything from 8km/l to 9,5km/l and with gasoline from 12 to 15km/l. Sorry can’t give you a more exact estimate, but with such a small displacement engine, mileage varies greatly depending on topography, use of aircon, my mood (my right foot)and even, sadly, quality of fuel being that it has been calculated that maybe 25% of fuel sold in the country is tampered with.
Due to tax breaks, normally I fill it up on alcohol, though with the start of the summer driving season alcohol producers have taken advantage and jacked up the price. So I’m probably going back to gasoline next fill-up. Prices in my part of Brazil are ROUGHLY 89 US cents per liter for alcohol and US dollar 1.33 per liter for gasoline.
Sorry for long rant, but since you asked how it is to live with a flex fuel car….
Here is some government propaganda for the kids
http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/renewable/ethanol.html
It’s been said that Ethanol is made by mixing corn with tax dollars and fermented by politicians.
The sad truth is caloric content of alcohol is about half that of gasoline. You pay a lot but get much less energy. And since it takes a lot more energy to make it rather than pump it out of the ground your behind the ball already. Crude oil can be processed into many products, not so for Ethanol.
There are more pitfalls to running cars on corn but we can wait for more TTAC opines about that.
E85 isn’t perfect, but it’s made in the USA from USA grown corn. In a post Peak Oil world crude oil and gasoline will be hard to come by. Google Peak Oil and ethanol and educate yourselves before condemning E85 too harshly. Peak Oil is the most important issue facing the auto industry.
Lets see, you barely get more energy out than you put into its production, it increases the nitrogen and phosphates in our water ways (that’s water pollution), uses huge amounts of water for irrigation and production that would otherwise be available for drinking, reduces the amount of acreage used to produce food for our country and others, and takes a very heavy toll on the nutrients in the soil. Now why would we consider corn ethanol a good environmentally friendly source of energy? That’s right it’s because we have a large farm lobby in the midwest that pays millions (billions?) of dollars to the federal government. I’d rather just continue to hand money over to the farmers in the form of subsidies and price supports. At least that won’t consume our natural resources like ethanol production does.
As far as reduction of emissions goes, about the only way to do that by using ehtanol instead of standard gasoline would be to design engines to take advantage of the high octane number afforded by ethanol. High compression small displacement engines to wring as much fuel efficiency as possible out of a lower energy fuel. Running ethanol or ethanol blends in a flex fuel vehicle designed to burn petrol is just a bad all around idea. Greater environmental impact from its production and reduced fuel efficiency in it’s use.
97escort :
E85 isn’t perfect, but it’s made in the USA from USA grown corn. In a post Peak Oil world crude oil and gasoline will be hard to come by. Google Peak Oil and ethanol and educate yourselves before condemning E85 too harshly. Peak Oil is the most important issue facing the auto industry.
Yeah, and you put in 10 units of oil energy to get out about 11 units of E85 energy, give or take a bit. Not exactly going to save us from dwindling oil supplies. Meanwhile, price of food goes up.
GS650G:
Are they dumbing down the science to make it understandable when they remove all science from the propaganda, I mean presentation?
Just how do plants know what CO2 was produced by the burning of ethanol? The “science” lesson states that a balance is set up between the production of CO2 through the burning of ethanol and the growth of plants, while implying that same balance is not achievable through the burning of hydrocarbons. Geeze, they never taught me that in any of my chemistry, environmental studies, or engineering courses in college. Maybe this miracle of plant evolution is a recently discovered phenomenon.