Poll Can your cars engine operate with E10 fuel?

[Urwumpe]

Since there is some controversy in Germany about the introduction of gasoline with 10% ethanol, the so-called E10 fuel, how about the rest of the world - can your car engine operate with such fuel, or didn't you even need to check?

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_ethanol_fuel_mixtures"]Common ethanol fuel mixtures - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

 

[Ark]

To the best of my knowledge, E10 shouldn't have any noticeable adverse effects with existing cars. The only real problem with running E85 is that it tends to eat the rubber of the fuel lines or damage things like injector seals. At 10% ethanol you shouldn't see any of that.

 

[Urwumpe]

To the best of my knowledge, E10 shouldn't have any noticeable adverse effects with existing cars. The only real problem with running E85 is that it tends to eat the rubber of the fuel lines or damage things like injector seals. At 10% ethanol you shouldn't see any of that.

Actually E10 can already do that damage, but slower. Also E10 does damage to engines with aluminum engine blocks, because of the combustion products, the alcohol reacts with aluminum and corrodes it quickly.

Officially, 7% of all German cars are incompatible to it, even if they already tolerated E5 fuel.

 

[MeDiCS]

Here, in Brazil, most cars can run on any mixture of ethanol and gasoline (the so-called Flex cars), and gasoline itself is a mixture with ~20% ethanol. No adverse effects as far as I can tell.

I, on the other hand, am unlucky. I drive a 20-year-old car which doesn't work well with anything but pure gasoline .

 

[astrosammy]

Should be no problem with mine... But what's with the XR and DG class vessels? :lol:

 

[PhantomCruiser]

I've got a 2005 Hyundai (before that a 2000 Hyundai). I ran both on 10% ethanol. No ill effects, but I didn't run them exclusively on E10.

Honestly I buy gas wherever it's cheapest. If I had a Mercedes SL AMG, well that'd be different (and I'd honestly not be worried over gas prices).

What is the gas price per liter (currently). If many U.S. drivers knew what the rest of the world pays for gas they'd count themselves lucky.

But then again, perhaps not...

 

[astrosammy]

I still remember the good old times when it was somewhere between 1,20 and 1,30 €/l...

---------- Post added at 23:26 ---------- Previous post was at 23:25 ----------

Wow, it was 0,70 when I was born...

 

[Hielor]

Both Seattle and Houston have laws in place that require all gas sold to be E10. I've been running my 96 Buick regal on it for several years now, no known problems (other than a measurable reduction in miles per gallon when running E10 versus normal gas)

 

[Quick_Nick]

What is the gas price per liter (currently). If many U.S. drivers knew what the rest of the world pays for gas they'd count themselves lucky.

But then again, perhaps not...

I feel a bit lucky. In my town, we seem to have the lowest gas prices in the nation. (It's all refined here after all)
Yet it's still too expensive to drive around any more than necessary. And I'm getting about 22-23 mpg, driving 40 miles each day, about 4 days a week, and varying amounts driven by my mom.

And I guess it's like what Heilor said about the laws, but I thought all gas had a good amount of ethanol.

 

[Artlav]

other than a measurable reduction in miles per gallon when running E10 versus normal gas

So, does increase in consumption cover the reduction of emissions/whatever the E10 is supposed to benefit?

 

[Wishbone]

It sure covers the revenues of corn farmers and distillers in the States, and (incidentally) cane distillers in Brasil At least consumers' sleep is not troubled by visions of their bucks going to Saudi princes...

 

[Hielor]

So, does increase in consumption cover the reduction of emissions/whatever the E10 is supposed to benefit?

Well, if E10 gives a 10% reduction in emissions, then no...my mileage has gone down by ~15%, so I'm burning 15% more gallons of gas for a 10% reduction in emissions per gallon? I've never actually done the math.

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, if E10 gives a 10% reduction in emissions, then no...my mileage has gone down by ~15%, so I'm burning 15% more gallons of gas for a 10% reduction in emissions per gallon? I've never actually done the math.

Sounds about right, ecologically, E10 fuel is a disaster, it is just a political brain child. You have officially 2-3% less power, but that can eventually mean 8-15% more consumption, depending on how much energy you need to compensate during your usual route.

 

[Rtyh-12]

My car usually runs on liquid hydrogen, but it can use helium-3 too. The total DeltaV decreases significantly, though.

 

[Wishbone]

You've got funny cars. (C) Grace Slick...

 

[RisingFury]

Unfortunately ethanol came 20 years too late to do any good. It should have been the standard 20 years before China and India started their economic boom with millions of cars being sold every year. We should be on our way to electric by now...



Also, one more thing that you need to take into account when calculating CO2 output. Most gas is produced in the middle east and needs to be transported to where ever it's needed. Usually cars output about 100 to 200 g of CO2 per km. But if you take into account the transportation of fuel as well, it ends up being 400 to 600 g per km.

Corn in some cases has the added advantage of being produced locally.

Electric cars do around 100 g/km if you take into account the coal being burned today...

 

[Urwumpe]

Electric cars do around 100 g/km if you take into account the coal being burned today...

Exactly...it is better than the average car, which is at 120 g/km, but no miracle.

Also, if you include the CO2 that is produced during extracting, transporting and refining the fuel, I doubt that the 120g / km is really accurate.

It is much simpler to transport electricity, but the capacity of batteries is till too low to be of any use. Also the recharging times aren't really good yet. If you could just automatically plug your car into a recharger at any better parking lot and have the car ready for driving again, the battery capacity would be only a detail.

 

[RisingFury]

Exactly...it is better than the average car, which is at 120 g/km, but no miracle.

Also, if you include the CO2 that is produced during extracting, transporting and refining the fuel, I doubt that the 120g / km is really accurate.

Like I said, if you include the transportation and handing of fuel, you get to around 400 to 600 g/km for a petrol car. So electrics are far better then petrol cars. Also, there's the potential to switch the power production to non carbon based energy source...

 

[T.Neo]

Yeah... except for the aforementioned (and very important) battery capacity and charging issues.

Leaving a car to charge for 2 hours isn't very convenient. Ok, so maybe, if you are only using it for a commute to work and back, and for most of the day the vehicle is parked (and can thus recharge), but the truth is that many car users have more dynamic activities.

The effective energy density of even the best batteries today is still something like half that of petrol, even when the poor efficiency of an internal combustion engine is taken into account. An IC car does not need to carry all the components of the reaction; an electric car does.

And battery technology is also not cheap... then again, it could be more than made up for if the actual energy costs are far lower.

You will not catch me driving an electric car, any time soon... I have never had any special affinity for cars, but no amount of Tesla Roadsters is going to change my perception of electric cars as weak-powered, plastic, roadworthy golf carts...

 

[Artlav]

Eventually we'll either get the batteries dense enough to be practical (and replace all the coal power plants with nuclear&fusion ones), or get the nuclear reactors to be safe and small enough to be practical on cars, or invent something new entirely, or somehow won't need cars any more.

Battery density seems to be the most plausible route. Ionisters are just hard to manufacture.