The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) tried to do the right thing, buying more than 30,000 American-made flex fuel vehicles capable of running on ethanol. However, the vehicles, purchase from 1998 to 2003, ended up decreasing overall fuel efficiency by 29% and increasing gasoline consumption by 1.5 million gallons, according to a USPS study.
The plan went wrong in two ways. The vehicles had larger than necessary engines and distribution of E85, the 85% ethanol blend of fuel, is still largely restricted to the midwest.
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6 comments so far...
31-May-2008
62002
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Hardly surprising. Flex-Fuel started as a bookkeeping scam in 1994 to make it appear as if Ford was in compliance with CAFE.
Posted by: d sakarya
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01-Jun-2008
62010
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d. sakarya is totally right, FlexFuel is one of Big Auto's Pretend We Are Green Scam's while sucking up their Oil Buddies Petroleum like there is no tomorrow. The logical thing to do with Methanol & Ethanol is to burn it as E100 or M100 in high efficiency, hi compression engines at double the efficiency of the gasoline engines. Flexfuel is simply a way of avoiding this energy saving step.
Posted by: Warren Heath
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01-Jun-2008
62019
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I agree with you Warren and Sakarya , Flex Fuel is the biggest hoax pulled on the lawmakers and consumers of America to date. Everybody who has used it knows that they are getting less mileage, lower power and spending more money.
Most lawmakers don't know the first thing about engines and are passing laws that they have no knowledge about. Both GM and Ford have finally developed 200 HP four cylinder two liter direct injection engines for cars , but I don't hear anything about them being installed in cars since the initial announcements about development.
Makes me wonder if they will be used here or will they be installed in cars made in Brazil that burn alcohol as fuel. These engines could power most every car made in USA for great fuel economy and plenty of power using gasoline , E 85 or pure alcohol if need be .
The thing that gets me is that all the engines developed here are a compromise since all of them can use almost any fuel . Propane , Natural gas , even Hydrogen works well in any engine that is used today that is operated on gasoline.
Flex Fueled vehicles are a joke that everybody knows about but doesn't do anything about either.
Posted by: Keith Tomilson
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02-Jun-2008
62027
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The problem with flex-fuel is that they are only doing half the program. They forget that the other part is to have a plug-in hybrid vehicle. There is no sense in making a flex-fuel vehicle if it is not a plug-in hybrid as well. I would even go to the extend of forbidding ethanol use to non plug-in hybrids. It is only in the form of a plug-in flex-fuel hybrid that biofuels make sense on an environmental and on an available volumes point of view. You need both plug-in hybrid and flex-fuel to really dent oil dependency.
Posted by: Patrick Leonard
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02-Jun-2008
62029
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Well . . . duh! Ethanol has crappy MPG. My opinion: Dump the trucks in favor of diesel/electric hybrids. Then your saving some fuel.
Posted by: Gerald Shields
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02-Jun-2008
62034
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I still dont think ethanol is really going to save us, but if you're going to use it, I recommend small displacement turbocharged engines. The higher octane of ethanol allows for higher boost pressure, allowing a small engine to run like a bigger engine on demand. When you're at constant speed, it's a 1.5 liter 'gas' motor. When you accelerate with 15 pounds of boost, it acts like a 3.0 liter. Forget turning off cylinders (certain american V8s), turbocharging is the real 'displacement on demand.' Non-turbo engines waste the high octane quality of ethanol, so you need a bigger engine to make the same power as you did with gasoline.
Posted by: E G
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