What are your opinions on the Ethanol-85 fuel - practical or just hype?

Answer 1

i really don't think ethanol is worth it really. as a few have already said it contains less energy than gasoline, so there for you have to burn more. That means you get less miles per gallon so you would ultimately be using more fuel and that would cost you more money.

Answer 2

Ethanol fuel is a great way to reduce the dependence of foreign oil. When you burn E-85, you only have 15% gasoline in the tank. Ethanol is renewable comes from the fermentation of starches. E-85 fuel has a natural octane rating around 110 octane so the performance of the vehicle will usually go up.
E-85 has more oxygen in it than straight gas, and less carbon, so when you use e-85 the vehicles computer will adjust the air fuel ratio to be much richer than with gasoline, that will give you a hit in fuel miles per gallon of about 18%. In most cases thou, E-85 is cheaper than gas to offset the mileage hit.
I have an SUV that gets 17 on gas 12.6 on e85. But when you do the math.. 12.6 @15% gasoline = 85 MPG of gasoline when running E85 (Each gallon of fuel only has 22.2 ounces of gasoline)

Answer 3

This fuel has been used in Brazil for the last 15 years. It started with a big Hype, people even transformed their gasoline engine to the mix gas/alcahol (Ethanol) engine. The problem at first is that the mix fuel cars did not performed as good as the gas cars, they did smell good as they pass by though :) ., but the other problem happened later when the price of the 2 fuel become dead even and the quality and performance of the engines were not the same!
I hope that helped.
David

Answer 4

E-85 will reduce you MPG by at least 10 -20% due to the lower output. It will greatly reduce CO2 emissions. Due to the chemical makeup of E-85, some modifications may have to be made to your fuel system which include: draining off regular gas, replacement of some hoses, replacement of fuel filters, and don't forget the injectors.

Ethanol is just moonshine with gas added. Corn while great to make wiskey, kinda sucks when your using it to make gas. Its not real efficient compared to other types of grains that can be used to make ethanol.

Almost all cars today can without any modifications can use about 10 - 15% Ethanol without voiding your warranty.

Answer 5

Not sure how much good it will do for the environment. How much pollution does making it put into the atmosphere? Also I once read that where gas is a 10 to 1 return ( you get 10 times the amount of energy out of it as it takes to make it) ethanol is like 1.3 to 1. Also with a lot of corn being converted to ethanol what will happen to countries where that is a major source of food? Will it drive prices so high many people will starve? Just a few of my own questions.

Answer 6

you need to use some E85 in it as long as you hold the familiar ethanol share in the tank below 50%. I mixture approximately 30% ethanol into my Ford concentration, which isn't flex gasoline. It runs wonderful on 30% ethanol. i'm going to upload 2 or 3 gallons of E85 to my tank while the tank is 3/4 finished with gas. in case you go E50 your examine engine easy might come on whether it won't injury your motor vehicle. that is going to run an analogous. I genuinely have been including E85 to my non-flex gasoline Ford concentration for 2 years now and under no circumstances had a single concern.

Answer 7

I am Brazilian so this name "E85" is new for me.

First of all in late 70s we had out first ethanol powered cars in Brazil; in that time cars ran on 100% ethanol and had carburators... (obviously we also had gasoline powered cars, as we do today).

In late 2003 the first flex-fuel car was produced in Brazil, since new technologies were developed it became possible for the engine to identify the gasoline-ethanol mix you have in your car and dinamically define parameters for the engine to run.
(mix can vary from 0-100% for gasoline or ethanol)

Even gasoline powered cars in Brazil and adapted and run on 24% ethanol and 76% gasoline to reduce emmissions. This is enforced by law. You'll never find 100% gasoline on a gas station, were it says "gasoline" your using the 24% ethanol mix.

IT IS A LOT CHEAPER AND POLUTES MUCH LESS.

I have a flex-fuel car, so I can use gasoline or ethanol:
Running on ethanol - 7 km/liter - price R$ 1,29/liter
Running on gasoline - 9 km/liter - price R$ 2,45/liter

So in my case is 120% more expensive to run on gasoline

Since US does not have enought technology to reach Brazilian's cost efficency to produce ethanol and overtax Brazilian imported ethanol, I guess this rational would not work today, but I bet it will work in a 10 years timeframe after US learn how to do it.

Answer 8

It will lower your MPG rating, because alcohol doesn't have the same BTU's as gasoline or diesel fuel. It will help with the pollution and I understand they use it in Brazil. I think we are going to have to find some other solution for a permanent solution. Hydrogen is the front runner on that at the moment. Who knows eventually we may go nuclear.

Answer 9

WAY OVERHYPED!

I believe E-85 is as much as 20% less efficient than regular gas and I believe it's only about 5% cheaper.

You have to look at ALL of the statistics.

Answer 10

it will be a great thing, provided the fuel suppliers get on board to start manufacturing it and distributing it in large quantities... I had a vehicle with e85, but couldn't find any where to purchase e85