While it does not require a special car to use ethanol blended fuel, to use E-85 fuel, it does require an ethanol engine in the car. Any vehicle, which operates on regular, unleaded gasoline can use E-10 fuel with no modifications required. E-10 is the abbreviation for fuel mixed at 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline. E-85 describes the same mixture, but with 85 percent ethanol.
While most of the major car manufacturers produce flexible fuel vehicles, capable of burning E-85 blends, their popularity has been slow to catch on due mainly to the lack of availability of the fuel. While some advancements have been made to the ethanol engine in allowing flexible fuel vehicles to be equipped with sensors to automatically adjust the fuel system based on the type of fuel being used, the technology is new that many are unaware it exists.
Others have attempted to take their engine engineered to operate on unleaded gasoline and convert it to an ethanol engine, the biggest obstacle has been in meeting environment protection agency emissions standards. After-market conversion kits are being advertised to turn your gas-only engine into an ethanol engine, but their guarantee for emissions compliance stipulates cars made before 1974.
Availability May Improve Popularity
Since the use of E-10 blended fuels require no adjustments to vehicles with gasoline engines, its use is beginning to expand and as ethanol producers increase refining facilities, the supply will increase greatly. With cars equipped with an ethanol engine and increased supplies and availability appear, flexible fuel vehicles will most likely become more popular among the driving public.
Environmentalists also have a passion for the ethanol engine as it reduces the dependency on fossil fuels and since it is an oxygenator, the fuel burns hotter and more efficiently, significantly reducing emissions from the ethanol engine. To keep up with demand, as well as to meet federal mandates on availability, the ethanol industry is adding capacity quickly.
From a scant dozen refineries a decade ago, there are now more than 100 ethanol factories with another 56 refineries under construction. Most are located within 100 miles of the grain source to keep production costs down, as well as the availability of rail and trucking routes to make shipping the refined product quicker and easier. As more ethanol companies come on line with new plants, and many owned by agricultural firms, they are increasing their corn-planting operations to insure their future supply of grain.