Well, it's happened.

Up until a couple of weeks ago, we here in corn country (where many of the ethanol refineries are located) were enjoying ethanol at 10 cents per gallon cheaper than regular. Now that California and some of the NE states are have abandoned MTBE and are requiring ethanol, the price of ethanol here is suddenly 10 cents per gallon more than regular. I guess 33 million people (or so) in one state can have an impact on supply and demand...

Sorry! My bad! We'll switch back. I don't mind cancer, honestly.

But if ethanol is now 10 cents more than gas, one wonders what all those people in flex-fuel vehicles are going to burn. Nah, no point in wondering, it's not much of a decision: pay more, burn more or pay less, burn less.

Would-be hypermiler

I still see E85 at ten cents less than regular gas at the two stations I pass that sell E85. That's what it was at as of yesterday, at least. It may change, though- and it's still much closer in price than you would think.

Seems like the E-85 should be about $1.00 less to make sense.

Would you settle for $1.99 a gallon?

Denver E-85

I wonder how long that price will last.

Interesting, I'll have to investigate that. I have a suspicion that I'm paying for some of that already.

I would imagine it wouldn't last long since all the stories are about how ethanol is $4/gallon on the spot market now.

I just went by the same station- last week it was $.10 less, but now gas is up $.20 and the price of ethanol hasn't changed. So the price difference is now $.30, which is about 9%. Better than 3%, but still not much. Is the price simply less volitile? Why would that be?

I live in downstate Illinois--corn country central.
E-85 is available at one station for about 5 cents a gallon less than our standard regular..most of which is 10% ethanol. Our 10% ethanol regular is the same price as non-ethanol regular. Our gas prices here are as high or higher than most in the country. Currently regular is 3.06 per gallon. The selling point for ethanol is that it helps our local farmers and lessens our dependency on foreign oil. Thats fine. Don't count on any price breaks. I get about 2-3 less mpg with 10% ethanol. Average mpg using ethanol with my '05 Prius: 42. Non-ethanol: 45.

To clarify: I do not use E85 in my Prius. I see in today's newspaper that Toyota is working on (considering?) a flexfuel vehicle.