A blend of 90% gasoline and 10% ethanol has more than 95% as much energy as pure gasoline, and yet it seems that the reduction in fuel economy is far more severe than caloric content would suggest. I can imagine a variety of factors which could cause a vehicle to travel less far on 1oz of ethanol mixed with 9oz of gasoline than it would travel on 9oz of gasoline mixed with nothing, but I don't know to what extent such factors apply. It would be interesting to know what such research would show, though given its extreme political-incorrectness I'm not sure who would conduct it. Certainly it shouldn't be difficult to have some test subjects in a double-blind test receive all their gasoline for some period of time from the entity running the test, and measure how the fuel economy when using pure gasoline compares to the fuel economy when using ethanol blend.
I would suspect that some of the loss in mileage is because the engine is not optimized to the blend.
The corrosivity of ethanol is probably also a factor, making it necessary to perform regular maintenance more frequently. If that’s not done, mileage goes down.
Ethanol is diluted gasoline, so it means I have to buy more of it than plain old gasoline.
The feds and states tax fuel consumption at the pump “by the gallon”.
Do you wonder where their vested interest lies?
Enough said. Why do I have to suffer for the few corn growers? One percent is too much. What dog do you have in this fight?
Certainly it shouldn’t be difficult to have some test subjects in a double-blind test and measure illumination when the sun is out compared to the brightness at night.
Most cars today either don’t have compression ratios that require higher octane levels, or their fuel injection systems allow them to burn lower octane levels with higher compression. In either case, higher octane accomplishes nothing. Nothing is gained by putting premium gas into a car that runs fine on regular. It’s a waste of money.
A better way to look at octane is to think in terms of smoothness and consistency of burn. A high compression engine needs a consistent burn in the combustion chamber, or bad things start to happen.
If you look at an energy equivalence chart you would see that a gallon of gasoline has more energy than a gallon of ethanol. You need 1.5 gallons of alcohol to equal one gallon of gas. But a little alcohol in the gas increases the octane level by making it burn more consistently, allowing a high compression engine to burn more efficiently. Again, with most engines on the road today, nothing is gained by the octane increase.
High mixtures of ethanol in gas are counter productive, providing less energy and lower gas mileage. Ethanol is also more corrosive than gasoline, which is why I avoid it in my two cycle chain saws. In situations where gas sits for any length of time, the ethanol will separate from the gas creating problems for farm equipment, my log splitter and so on. I use a marine stabilizer in my boat to avoid problems.