New E85 Fuel

[Malcolm]

I'm not sure if I read any of the above posts as complaining about it. I also think people are viewing it as 2 different things - some see it as a racing fuel - which IMO is what it is most useful for ATM, and some as a fuel for daily consumption, for which there is no good reason to use it at all.

I was just reading an interesting SAE paper which suggested that engines that have been modified to benefit from E85 (higher compression) can see considerable improvements in fuel efficiency (normalised for energy content of the fuel), but you still need the price of the E85 to be lower than petrol to get better economy - and vehicles that are dedicated to E85, rather than flex-fuel vehicles which cannot be optimised for the fuel.

[Lith]

I guess I misinterpreted "protest"

Totally agree though, its going to be more expensive for the time being - in Oz (and the rest of the world) its a fair bit cheaper than other fuels, so as long as you have a car set up to make the best of it then it makes quite a bit of sense in general.

I for one am quite excited about the prospect, and if it gets used more often I'd hope more providers will come to the party and we'll end up with it coming in at well under $2 a litre like other countries.

[RH9]

If its gonna mean 30% more fuel consumption it needs to be at least 30% cheaper at the pump to sell it to most "normal" people

Australia is a very competitive and "intelligent" market. Over there petrol sells for around 15c per litre cheaper between Tuesday and Thursday so they sell the same amount of fuel throughout the week and those who wish to travel in the weekends pay a premium so the weekday commuter isnt penalised. Sounds like something we will never have in NZ........competition and foresight!

[Lith]

If its gonna mean 30% more fuel consumption it needs to be at least 30% cheaper at the pump to sell it to most "normal" people

A lot of people out there aren't normal though

[Malcolm]

In many countries there is a government subsidy of some type that heavily reduces the price of E85 (such as in the USA), and that is the only reason why it's cheaper.

Generally speaking, ethanol is more expensive to extract than petrol is - once you've extracted oil from the ground, conversion to usable product is relatively straightforward. With ethanol, produced via common means, you have to grow crops which must be harvested and fermented to create the fuel. This has considerable land costs, and one of the biggest problems is that these energy crops usually displace food crops that could be grown on the same land - resulting in an increase in food prices.

In reality, unless the fuel can be created from a byproduct of some other industry (such as here, where it is recovered from the dairy industry), ethanol is never going to be a replacement for petrol because it's not practical or economical to grow crops to fuel the world's energy requirements.

[Flannelman]

Someone with money should build a brewery and ferment kitchen waste and use solar heating to assist with the distillation.

No wait, just because its a cheap way to make fuel doesnt mean it will be cheap at thee pump as the investors will want large profits from such a cheap process.

Greed. Thats all it is.

Is ethanol a good fuel? For making power, yes. For economy? Not realy. But if the fuel is cheaper to offset the increased fuel consumption then demand will rise as the cost to increase fuel supply is now offset. Much like CNG/LPG convertions.

But, of course, since demand goes up, so does the cost. Which isnt economics, its greed again. As ethanol is made, (or any fuel for that matter) it has a set price. why should that price change?

[Makaveli]

http://www.gull.co.nz/fuel-products/gull-force-pro/

110 Octane at the pump, not too shabby.......

Kinda pointless in a way as 95% of the cars on the road in NZ won't be able to run on it.

[Bling]

Higher octane, less energy per litre, better? You be the judge

If it was all about octane everyone would be using LPG.

[Makaveli]

Depends on what you are after. If you are after economy, you can't beat the common rail diesel engines: 1000km to a tank.

Alcohols such as Methanol are not as efficient as normal crude based fuels but as you are using about twice as much fuel, it enables the engine to run cooler, which allows you to run crazy boost levels and really high compression. Adding Toluene to your fuel and lead helps too with detonation.

This new fuel is only available at one service station anyway. Can't see it being a success since most people drive old cars in NZ.

[Santa'sBoostinSleigh]

Depends on what you are after. If you are after economy, you can't beat the common rail diesel engines: 1000km to a tank.

yeah right, my work Ranger gets less than half that

[dusk93]

He never said how big of a tank......

[Malcolm]

Didn't you know that km's per tank is a standard unit of measure for fuel economy?

The sad thing is that a lot of people buy based on that - when I was in Melbourne around December '09, just after the 3L SIDI Commodores had come out, they had massive billboards advertising it saying "from here to Sydney on one tank of gas". Funny thing is that at work we have 2 test vehicles, one of the new 3L SIDI models and an old dirty VN 3.6 V6, and they achieve similar fuel consumption over standard urban drive cycles

[thaphatty]

its pretty cheap compared to vodka, just gives you a chronic hangover

[RedMist]

Just had my Honda retuned for E85. 175whp, not too bad from a 1650cc engine. Torque curve looks very flat for such a small engine. It also appears a little lean so more power to come (if I wasn't going to strap a turbo to it!).
However, the big if is wither or not the 120L tank will get me 250 km or not. I doubt it will.



It's producing more power from the E85 than from VP 112.

[nz_climber]

I would have thought there would have been more support for E85 on here, purely on the performance benefits it provides (since there is more than a few high power cars on here)

E85 should become more wide spread over time, and hopefully gull stations near race tracks wide be the leaders on this (if they have any brains) which should mean a drop in price that motor sports folks are currently paying for E85 drum stock.

I just hope the places that release it have enough turn over that it won't just turn into massive tank of water over time, which will give it a bad name in the media.

Sure the economy of E85 is crap, so don't put it in your daily driver! easy! But for those that use E85, or want to in future for race and drag cars etc this is great news.

[Mr Revhead]

You fail to grasp the implications.... The aim is to increase the alcohol content in all our fuels....

[gt4dude]

this is cool, you can fill up your alcohol injection tank at the same time you fill your petrol tank

[matt dunn]

Depends on what you are after. If you are after economy, you can't beat the common rail diesel engines: 1000km to a tank.

yeah right, my work Ranger gets less than half that

Really?
then either it's not common rail or it has a fault.
Common rail diesil turbo is the way to go for power and economy.

we get 6-700Km in the hilux towing the race car on a tank,
and that up and down hills and not going slow.

[Bling]

Tank size might vary a bit.

Although if Andrew drives around getting stuck all the time I guess it adds up

[4agtepwr]

Im all for it for racing anyway. I run an e30 blend from alcotane at the mo in the mr2 just for the drags mainly cause im a tightarse and dont want to fork for 2200cc injectors and another 044 haha and a much tamed down 95 octane map for the street. The one thing I would be concerned about was that e85 on the pump was just that, if it ALWAYS tested 85% it would be ok but otherwise a waste of time and harmfull. Have heard e85 on the pump in aus can test as low as 60% and that would lead to disaster very quickly. Alcotane's stuff always test the same thats why we use it. Otherwise E85 is a brillant fuel, so much cheaper that c/q16 and all the benefits of methanol without the hassle.