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Hybrid Vehicles Hybrid Vehicles - Archived Discussions Will ethanol E85 catch on in the US? Will we Live Green and Go Yellow? 
2104 messages, Last post on Oct 27, 2006 at 5:34 AM
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Replying to: Sylvia (Mar 28, 2006 7:45 am) I don't think they will. Maybe in the corn growing states. Even with a big subsidy it is more expensive than unleaded. It is also about 25% less efficient. If people think it is hard to find Diesel. There is only one station in California that sells to the public. The E85 price today is $2.79 per gallon. It should be kept in the midwest where the corn is grown. Until they can make it without huge subsidies to the mega-Ag corporations, it is not viable. Corn is far from an earth friendly crop. |
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Replying to: bumpy (Mar 28, 2006 8:55 am)
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Replying to: vicenac (Mar 28, 2006 9:15 am) Of course, if gasoline gets more expensive (maybe double what it is now), or scarce, then the whole picture changes for ethanol.
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Replying to: Sylvia (Mar 28, 2006 7:45 am) I believe E85, along with biodiesel and hybrids, are just flavors of the month. Its like putting a band aid on a broken leg, they won't even come close to solving our energy problems. We need to find another energy source and fast.
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Replying to: Sylvia (Mar 28, 2006 7:45 am) The core problem with E85 is that there is no "wow factor" for the consumer, just no compelling reason for the consumer to seek it out. Toyota was smart to make its first hybrids into a showcase of technology, which created a sort of hybrid chic that motivated the earlier purchasers to buy them, despite the high cost. Honda's approach of simply enhancing gas motors gets the improved power and fuel consumption, but also doesn't make the technology very sexy for the end user. Not specific to cars, but I would recommend Geoffrey Moore's excellent book on technology marketing called Crossing the Chasm to get some general insights that could applied to seeing why Toyota has succeeded in making hybrids catch on. In essence, there is an adoption cycle for technology that determines whether products will or will not survive the mass market, beginning with "innovators" who are tech enthusiasts, followed by "early adoptors" who serve as visionaries to the buying public. If you can make the leap over the chasm from those two groups to the pragmatic "early majority", then you have a winner. Toyota has worked diligently to appeal to the first two groups, and is now working on getting things established to appeal to the pragmatists who help drive the spike in sales. I don't blame GM or Honda for trying to take more subtle approaches, based upon past failures of electric cars, but they missed the boat on how to generate public interest. Now Toyota has the advantage of first mover advantage, which means they will be able to license their proven and popular model to other automakers, who will find their best pitch to the customer is that they use Toyota's hybrid technology. I don't see any automaker that is currently pushing E85 being able to pull off a similar coup. |
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Replying to: snakeweasel (Mar 28, 2006 9:50 am) What I found funny as well was when the president gave his speech back in February about utilizing E85, the prices shot through the roof, so it's now gotten even more expensive. That just tells me it's all a game. I think for it to make an impact: E85 has to be more energy-efficient than an equivalent amount of gasoline (or by hella cheaper) If less-efficient, can't be no more than 10% than gasoline Can't be volitale like gasoline pump prices (constantly going up, then sliding down a penny, then back up by a dime a week later) Readily available like gasoline - why drive out of your way to save a nickel when gasoline fuel is available darn near every corner Determine what happens when there's a drought, bad crop, etc - a la Katrina Control the gouging I could go on but the post is long enough
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Replying to: jae5 (Mar 28, 2006 10:45 am) May I ask where you are at? I am in the Midwest just outside of Chicago. There are enough E85 stations to make using it no real hassle. The last time I checked prices were around 50 cents less than regular unleaded. But still with the loss of mileage the E85 would still be more per mile.
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1 bushel of corn yeilds 2.8 gallons of ethanol. About 10 billion bushels of corn are produced annually in the US. So, a maximum of 28 billion gallons of ethanol is possible. We use 140 billion gallons of gasoline and another 40 billion gallons of diesel annually. About 7 billion bushels of the corn is used to feed livestock so that we have something to eat. The basic point is that there is no way to replace gasoline with corn. Even if it were possible to double or triple corn production.
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Replying to: gagrice (Mar 28, 2006 9:11 am) Further more, corn is an extremely earth friendly crop. It produces food for the masses, livestock and can create renewable resources, fuels, packing materials, byproducts and other products we use in our daily lives. I have no idea where you get the idea it is an earth unfriendly crop - perhaps you need to visit the midwest before putting down a very important resource we can produce right here in our own country.
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Replying to: mconsbruck (Mar 28, 2006 12:39 pm) I happen to own a farm in MN. I know exactly how much chemical is required per acre to get a decent crop of corn. I know how many years of Alfalfa has to be grown on the land before I can grow another crop of corn. Corn requires more chemicals than most other crops. These are chemicals that leech through the soil into the water table. These are some of the reasons I let my farm go to natural pasture. It is not good for the environment. It is not cheaper than unleaded when you consider we are adding a dollar or more to each gallon by way of subsidy. How do you get it out of the midwest to market? In Massachusetts, an estimated 250,000 flexible-fuel vehicles stand ready to run on E85 as easily as gasoline without mechanical adjustment. Yet because New England has no ethanol production facilities, transporting E85 from the nearest producer in South Bend, Ind., was cost-prohibitive until gas prices reached the $2.50 per gallon range. Still, unless the Commonwealth is persuaded to subsidize an ethanol infrastructure, fuel specialists say, pumps stocked with E85 are unlikely to spring up here. Chief among the skeptics is Cornell University ecologist David Pimentel. In analyzing how much fossil fuel and other energy goes into planting, fertilizing, harvesting, and then converting corn into a liquid fuel, he concluded in a 2005 paper that the process isn't economically or environmentally advantageous. ''Actually, we're contributing to global warming [by using E85] because it takes more energy to make a gallon of ethanol than you get out of that gallon," Pimentel said. E85 |
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