Where is flex fuel sold

Enter vehicle or phrase. Flex-fuel Vehicles. Some capless fuel fillers have a yellow ring around where you insert the fuel nozzle. Check the Fuel Door. Some FFVs have labels on the fuel door indicating fuel type. Check Your Owner's Manual. Probably not as much as certain vested interests would have us to believe.

Today the vast majority of the ethanol we use to blend with gasoline comes from corn. Growing corn undeniably absorbs CO2, but because most of the American farmland producing that corn was already producing corn or another food or feed crop in the years before subsidies and other incentives redirected that corn to fuel production, the global CO2 uptake didn't increase when this corn was redirected to make alcohol.

Only then can the CO2 absorbed to make the fuel truly be counted as offsetting the CO2 released by its combustion in a vehicle. Two other problems with corn: Growing it consumes a great deal of water, much of which has had to be pumped from the ground during recent drought conditions and which might be better invested in food production.

Also, converting corn to ethanol is energy intensive, because the starches it contains must be broken down to produce sugars that can be distilled into alcohol. For this reason, it takes roughly 30 percent more energy to produce ethanol from corn than it does to make it from sugar cane, and this further dents the global case for corn ethanol as a fuel.

The cost of adding flex-fuel capability to a new vehicle is minimal and seldom passed along to the customer because flex-fuel capability has long brought with it a Corporate Average Fuel Economy CAFE benefit. So the math revolves primarily around whether your local fuel cost relative to gasoline is reduced sufficiently to cover the expected 15 to 27 percent reduction in fuel economy that can be expected with E That means that for the current crop of flex-fuel-rated vehicles listed below whose combined EPA rating on E85 drops by between A few caveats: Drivers in the Midwest may well find E85 priced sufficiently lower to make driving on E85 pencil out; if your region and season land you with the 51 percent blend, the range drop will be far less, so your results may vary—widely.

A loophole in the CAFE regulations designed to encourage adoption of alternative fuels permitted a huge credit for flex-fuel vehicles. This led to widespread adoption of the technology. The RFA has developed an E15 Retailer Handbook to provide fuel retailers with regulatory and technical guidance to legally store and sell E This includes sample checklists, labeling options, questions to contemplate regarding offering E15, and requirements retailers must execute before proceeding.

The U. RFA is available to assist retailers with the process, which includes:. The cost to upgrade an existing retail gas station to sell E15 is probably less than you might think. E85 can only be used in flex-fuel vehicles FFVs. Click here for a list of all FFVs. E85 does require different equipment than regular gasoline.

E85 can easily be incorporated into multi-product dispensers, eliminating the need for stand-alone equipment.

A percent blend is not a flex fuel. The Renewable Fuels Association defines a flex fuel as a blend of ethanol and gasoline that contains more than 15 percent ethanol and less than 83 percent ethanol. According to Cars. They can run on anything from percent gasoline to blends containing 85 percent ethanol. All model standard vehicles and newer can run on E15 but can't handle the corrosiveness of higher ethanol percentages.

The Society of Automotive Engineers and other supporters of E85 usage argue that if automotive manufacturers would recognize and take advantage of ethanol-based fuel's superior traits, they could make an ethanol engine that was as efficient as one powered by gasoline.

According to these proponents, an ethanol engine that can reach up to 22 percent more miles per gallon than a gasoline engine already exists. It's wrong, they say, to base ethanol engine design on that of a gas engine when ethanol is closer to diesel fuel. Critics of E85 and ethanol, in general, argue that its lower heating value outweighs any benefits.

Supporters counter that argument by pointing out that heating value does not factor into overall efficiency. Adding a fraction of gasoline to ethanol blends can counteract the low heating value. E85 also has higher octane content, which can provide more engine power. Thanks to an abundance of corn, E85 is only going to become more common in the United States.

Increased support and government subsidies mean that E85 and other flex fuels are here to stay. New Cars. Buyer's Guide. Type keyword s to search.