What are the differances in fuel milage ratings of reg. unleaded compared to flex fuel/E85?

Question

What are the differances in fuel milage ratings of reg. unleaded compared to flex fuel/E85?

Answer 1

There is a lot of mis-information out there about fuel economy with E85. Ethanol has about 28 percent less energy per unit than gasoline at atmospheric pressure. However by using it in an engine and under compression or greater pressure, it burns more efficiently. So its power will increase the greater the pressure and the less that is required. A typical engine with a 8 to 1 compression will require 11 to 15 percent more fuel over gas. Turbo charged and super charged cars that have the ability to boost pressure, need less ethanol since their compression increases significantly under boost. Now every car out there that is built to be Flex or converted to Flex, will require more ethanol than gasoline. If a vehicle was built to be E85 or ethanol only, would get better fuel economy than a gasoline engine and have more horsepower. In the future when E85 is available at every gas station in the USA, we could see cars with 1.5 liter engines getting 50 miles to the gallon and 300 horsepower. They will have compression like a diesel 16 to 1 or greater.

You can convert your existing fuel injected car to E85. A company in Colorado http://www.change2E85.com sells a conversion kit that was invented in Brazil over 20 years ago.

Answer 2

E85 will give worse mileage than gasoline, but I don't know exactly how much worse.

Answer 3

The government tests this all the time and the findings are listed at: www.fueleconomy.gov It takes some time but all the information is there. E85 is wasteful,dirty and expensive, and its creation destroys foodstuffs.  This drives up food costs. This is possibly one of our most foolhardy moves.

To be specific using e 85 drives mileage down.

Answer 4

Wow- That guy is wrong.

Ethanol 76,000 BTU (amount of energy that it has)

Gasoline 116,000 BTU

Due to a higher evaporative pressure ethanol requires more fuel.  Ethanol gets, depending on speed you travel (MPH) get between 24%-34% less fuel economy.

www.fueleconomy.gov

The funny part to this is, it takes 98,000 BTU to make 1 gallon of ethanol which only contains 76,000 BTU and it takes about 1,700 gallons of water to make  1 gallon of ethanol.

http://www.slate.com/id/2122961/

And it cost the tax payers $1.38 a gallon in tax subsides.  I could go on for a long time why ethanol is terrible.

Have you seen the American Choppers episode where they made a motorcyle for Iowa Farm Bureau.  It required to burn 2.5 or 2 1/2 times more ethanol  than gas.?

I could go on for hours here.