10% Ethanol and mileage

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by Ryland

I tend to see a 10% drop in mileage, a friend of mine with a chevy half ton truck sees a 15% to 20% drop in mileage, my parents in their Geo Metro see a 10% to 15% drop as well, enough to make it worth spending the extra money on non E10.

But when the ethanol price break is a bigger percentage than the ethanol fe penalty, you come out ahead.

[brucepick]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

But when the ethanol price break is a bigger percentage than the ethanol fe penalty, you come out ahead.

But the price break is only there because ethanol is subsidized. Well, oil is subsidized also, if you consider the costs of our armed forces in various parts of the world protecting our "interests". I admit that I digress.

[Frank Lee]

I don't care about subsidies as I have no control over them anyway.

Feel free to boycott everything that has a subsidy. I think you'll be surprised at the variety of things you'll have to forego.

[jkv357]

My experience with my cycle has been that going from E10 87 octane to 91 w/o I see a 4% increase in mileage. My hwy mileage went from a consistent 53 to 55 with the switch. I recently found 87 octane (recommended) w/o Ethanol, and hope to see additional improvements.

87 w/o Ethanol is $ .10 more per gal.


Jay

[gone-ot]

...higher (due to breathing the 'fumes'?) mathematics:

MPG: 4% = 4/100

COST: 10¢ = 10/100

...so, it's costing you more than it's improving your FE.

[jkv357]

Well it doesn't matter to me if it costs slightly more, because I don't run E10 in my cycle if I don't have to, but...

Mileage w/ Ethanol = 53
Mileage w/o Ethanol = 55
= 4% increase w/o Ethanol

87 w Ethanol = $3.65 (+ 4% = $3.79)
87 w/o Ethanol = $3.75 (3% more)

So according to my math I'm ahead.

EDIT: What's "due to breathing the fumes" supposed to mean?

Jay

[toc]

E10 is ultimately bad.
It contains less energy than is used to produce it.

The production of it takes up valuable farming land - land which otherwise would produce food, a far more useful commodity.

The burning of ethanol produces far worser gases than that of 91, 95 or 98RON ULP.

The outcome of using E10 is that you will end up needing more fuel to travel the same distance (less energy content, less energy can be derived from it, you can't break the laws of thermodynamics)

The price of E10 may be cheaper per L, but on a kM/L basis, you should come out ahead in price terms by using 95 RON fuel (and it's better for your engine).

LPG is a cheaper fuel here in Australia, used in taxis as it's 'the cheapest' fuel, the trouble is you need more of it to get the same distance as ULP. It's significantly cheaper (50% cheaper), but we are depleting the resources faster than ever, and so using it for a fuel isn't the best of decisions.

I place Ethanol in the same LPG basket, sure, it might be cheaper to some extent (not cheap enough here for me), but if you look at the real costs of it, you are paying the difference through either the poorer quality air breathed in, to higher priced food due to lack of farming land / lack of interested farmers if Ethanol is more attractive to them.

I realise that this price specific points would apply to Australia and not necessarily in the USA, my point is that the number of L required to produce x KM is a consideration, I wouldn't buy 36L of E10 for 380kM if I can get 450kM from 36L of 95RON. I still wouldn't buy E10 if I could get 420kM - the food & environmental impacts will cost more than the savings.

Ethanol in fuels is madness, it's like saving 5c worth of fuel coasting in neutral, but getting a fine because you went downhill 10kM faster as a result of coasting.

[Daox]

I'd be very interested in seeing any info you have to back up the ethanol info you just posted. I've talked with a few guys who have done E85 conversions with their vehicles and they basically say the exact opposite. I know they've done quite a bit of research on the topic so I'm curious if you have any studies, papers, or anything that backs up your info. I don't have any, so I can't say for sure one way or another and call it fact. I have always heard that ethanol burns "cleaner" than gasoline though.

[toc]

It's late here now, but sure, I'll get the information and update later on. I'm fairly sure - I've read each of those, in different places at one point or another in my online travels.

[02Sunfire]

Considering that ambient temperature and weather conditions are your biggest mileage variation factors, I would guess that it would be almost impossible to tell if E10 would actually raise/lower mileage compared to non-ethanol gasoline. You would never be able to repeat conditions.