Ethanol-FFV?

Question

Anyone know of any gas station chains that sell Ethanol-FFV fuel, and if so is it worth the purchase of a vehicle that takes this fuel.

I'm more leaning towards trying to buy a truck...as far as electric cars, not for me. Why? Two reasons:
1 I have to plug it in, and I live in an appartment complex.

2 how am I concerving energy for the environment with an electric car if I'm using the energy in my house to constantly charge it...I can only immagine the cost of my electric bill...yikes

As far as the economy goes, one truck won't make a huge difference. Im not even looking in to saving money on fuel. I was simply looking at buying an FFV vehicle and wanted to know from other owners, is it a good investment or not? The same or equal to a regular gasoline opporated vehicle. Also, I thought I saw someone say I can put regular gasoline in it also...is this true??

Answer 1

I don't know wether you are looking to buy a new FFV or a pre-owned one. There are PLENTY of both on the market.
FFV's can use regular gasoline or E85, which is 85% ethanol / 15% gasoline.

For a list of gas stations in your area that carry E85, here is a website:
http://www.e85refueling.com/

To find out which vehicles are FFV's (new & used):
http://www.e85fuel.com/e85101/FFVlist2007.pdf
http://www.e85fuel.com/e85101/flexfuelvehicles.php

The purchase of a "New" FFV may also qualify you for Federal & State tax incentives as well.

{ I applaud the EXCELLENT answer above (M S) & would like to add that we don't send our troops to the Midwest (U.S.) to protect our interests in Illinois & Iowa corn farms. Just another factor (+) to consider when calculating the use ($) of alternative fuels}

Answer 2

Ethanol Ffv

Answer 3

A previous answer addressed your question of where to buy E-85 and the vehicles that use it very well. The question of whether it is worth buying a FFV (flexible fuel vehicle) really hinges on economics and personal beliefs. The economics relates to what you think the cost of E-85 will be as compared to gasoline. Pricing for ethanol relates more to its supply / demand than to gasoline. So at any given time E-85 may be more or less than gasoline. The personal beliefs plays a part in whether you think ethanol is good as an alternate fuel to gasoline or bad because of the fuel for food and recent corn price issue. That is one you will have to research and make up your own mind. I personally believe ethanol is a good alternative to gasoline and it is better to pay our farmers more money for corn than to pay a foreign company for their oil. But, it isn't an easy issue.

What a FFV does for you is it provides an option for using E-85 if the pricing is less while also allowing you to use gasoline if it isn't. Unfortunately most FFV's are trucks, SUV's and large sedans. So, if you are in the market for that anyway it is a good option. But, environmentally it would be better to buy a smaller vehicle with better gas mileage than to purchase a larger vehicle that has FFV capability. Also, ethanol has less energy (Btu's) per gallon than gasoline so your vehicle will get less miles per gallon than it would with gasoline. So, E-85 has to be less expensive to even out the mileage difference economically.

Answer 4

Ethanol is government pork, it takes 2/3 of a gallon of fossil fuel to make a gallon's worth of ethanol.
http://www.mda.state.mn.us/renewable/renewablefuels/balance.htm

Biodiesel is 3x more efficient, so I think that's the real winner and its price will be more stable.

New high-performance diesel cars and trucks are coming out in the next year (EPA just changed the smog laws on diesel so the automakers are designing all new engines). And all diesels, new or old, can run biodiesel. So you'll have a lot more choices than Beetle, Jetta, truck or Mercedes.

Yes you should definitely check out alternative fuel vehicles, either E85 flex-fuel or diesel, so that you have a hedge against insane gas prices of the future. Like I say I don't think ethanol will work, but biodiesel will.

Gas will go down in a few months but don't be fooled, that's only temporary, it's gonna go back up, and up, and up.

Answer 5

I did the calculation in another thread about how much ethanol we could produce if we bought the entire supply of corn in the world and produced it--it came to 28% of the gasoline consumption of the United States. Brazil can't even produce enough ethanol to run all their cars at 25% ethanol anymore because of the increase in demand for E85.

Secondly, ethanol is going to continue to be much more expensive than gasoline for many, many years.

All the lip service and government handouts (oil companies receive 51cents/gallon from the US government for every gallon of ethanol they mix with gasoline which reduces the money available to fix the roads--see invisible costs) will not make ethanol into the "cure." Bio-diesel is much better in all respects but we'd have to make the country want to start buying diesel vehicles.

So either go diesel or stick with gasoline engines. Because E85 is not only unrealistic, but even if it is the same cost per gallon, you will be using 30% more of it per mile.

Answer 6

If you want to know are there any gas stations nearby your locality that carries E-85 ethanol goto:

http://gasprices.mapquest.com/

select e-85 and enter your address - a map with the gas stations near by the address you specified will be marked.

Since e-85 ethanol is not available full fledged in the US, its better to buy a car that can run in both gasoline and e-85 ethanol. The following link lists the vehicles that can run on e-85 ethanol:

http://www.cleanairchoice.org/outdoor/FlexibleFuelVehicles.asp

Answer 7

I think you will be disappointed in E-85 as it will give you only slightly better emissions and much worse economy. The cost will only go up if demand increases. Already we see that milk is at $3.50 a gallon because of the demand for corn to make Ethanol has raised the price of corn to feed the dairy cows.

Get an electric car for your daily commute and errands and rent a car for the long trips. I do.

Answer 8

Yes, there are several chains that sell ethanol. To look up one near you click this link:

http://www.e85refueling.com/

Then just click the state you are in and it will list the addresses and phone numbers of all the ethanol stations near you. They only put 9 stations on a page so be sure to scroll thru all the pages at the bottom.

Last year I bought a 2006 Mercury Grand Marquis flex fuel vehicle. After using ethanol, I will NOT go back to using gasoline. A flex fuel car can run on either gasoline or ethanol. But ethanol is better for your engine anyways. It burns cleaner in the engine and also combusts at a cooler temperature, which is also better for your engine. Heat is an enemy of your engine. Ethanol is priced 25% cheaper than gasoline and I only lose about 15% fuel economy in my Grand Marquis. So overall I save about 10% on fuel by using E85(ethanol). To answer your question, yes, a flex fuel vehicle can use either ethanol or gasoline or any mixture of the two. You can fill up on gasoline one time and ethanol the next time, etc. It makes no difference.

Lastly, let me tell you why I use ethanol. Simply put, it is clean, renewable, and made in America. Gasoline is none of those things. Gasoline is not renewable, pollutes, and comes from the Mideast. We can cut our trade deficit by 47% simply by switching from imported oil to homegrown ethanol. I've seen arguments that ethanol will make the price of food, milk, etc go up. But rising gasoline prices will make the price of EVERYTHING go up. Everything you buy at the store whether it's a TV, furniture, clothing, etc. has to be shipped to that store via truck. Trucks run on diesel or gasoline. Both come from oil. Sky high gas prices are causing the price of everything to go up. I'd rather pay a little more for food and pay less for everything else I buy. Using ethanol reduces demand for oil which forces the price of oil to drop and in turn lowers the price of EVERYTHING. Plus, I'd rather my money go to an American farmer than a Mideast oil sheik, or even a filthy rich coorupt oil executive for that matter. The U.S. Dept. of Energy concluded in 2006 that making a gallon of ethanol results in a positive 77% energy return. You can read about this on their website. Big oil has created lots of myths regarding ethanol and unfortunatelly alot of people(especially people who answered this question) believe them. Think about it rationally---which uses less energy? With ethanol, the corn grows from the ground and corn starch is created inside the plants. The sun does most of the work. The corn is harvested, taken to a nearby ethanol plant and electricity is used to ferment the corn starch into usable ethanol. Electricity can be generated from wind, solar, and other renewable sources. With gasoline, oil is drilled from the ground thousands of miles away with huge oil drills. It is then put in barrels and put on huge tankers which sail 7000 miles from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Mexico. The entire time these huge oil tankers don't use any energy or any fuel. Magic elves do everything. Then once the crude oil is taken off the ship it still must be refined into usable gasoline, diesel, etc. refining crude oil into usable fuel takes energy! Lots of it in fact. The heat needed to distill oil into gasoline and diesel is far greater than the heat needed to ferment corn starch into ethanol. Producing 1 gallon of gasoline uses about 3 gallons of fossil fuels.

I could go on and on. Obviously, you are a smart girl and understand the importance of having clean, American-grown, renewable energy. I say buy a FFV. And use ethanol. You will not regret it!

Answer 9

Ethanol is only a little bit cleaner burning with regards to cancerous emmissions than gasoline, so why bother.

Answer 10

Not yet ...but we saw why and how this gov'ts energy policy is a joke.
Now we are robbing the water supply to grow corn and starve people.
How stupid is that?
Fire all our represenatives in gov't. don't you agree?