E85 fuel is intended for use in FFVs. FFVs use E85 or gas
interchangeably.
During the $1.85-per-gallon promotion on August
13th, there is a 20-gallon limit per customer; portable fuel cans are not
allowed.
http://www.thewheelerreport.com/wheeler_docs/files/0806ala.pdf
E85 is nice. But I get about 70-80 percent the mileage with it. So, it's not soooo great.
Wow, I thought this was a well known, widely established fact. E85, even in cars designed for it, all get terrible gas mileage. This is normal, and expected.
Ethanol does not have, as a matter of physics, have the same amount of energy as oil. It's a physics problem. It physically does not contain the same amount of energy.
You simply can't get the same mileage from Ethanol, because it physically, simply doesn't have as much energy to be gotten.
Using the roughest of numbers, Ethanol has about 2/3 the energy of oil. Since E85, is of course, 15% oil, 70% to 80% of the gas mileage is exactly what you should expect, out of decently tuned vehicle. If you have a vehicle less adapted, you can expect lower mileage, even less than how much energy it has, because it's being harnessed less effectively.
Now, on a personal cost side, the lower cost of E85, almost makes up for it's lower mileage.
The problem is, the government is paying rich people, to make that E85. They subsidies Ethanol greatly. Not in the liberal version of subsidize, where they get a tax break. But real subsidy, where the government takes money from your check, and pays it to the people who make Ethanol, and then you pay for it at the pump too.
So unlike Exxon, which only get's money from your pocket if you buy their gas, Ethanol gets the money you pay the pump, and some money you pay on April 15th. Perhaps that doesn't bother you, but that bugs the snot out of me.