This is GM's master plan to save themselves. BRILLIANT!

http://www.gm.com/company/onlygm/liv...low/index.html

Click "Get Stuff" on the left to go to the form.

 

What's with only having one size of each? It wouldn't be so weird if they were both the same but xl and medium? Oh well, it's free.

 

Wow.. so according to their websites, the following vehicles are available as FlexFuel:

* GMC Sierra full-size truck
* Chevy Avalanche full-size truck
* Chevy Monte Carlo mid-size sedan
* Chevy Tahoe full-size SUV
* Chevy Silverado full-size truck
* Chevy Suburban extra-full size SUV
* Chevy Impala mid-size sedan
* GMC Yukon full-size SUV
* GMC Yukon XL extra-full size SUV

So other than the Impala twins (the Monte Carlo is just a 2-door Impala) it's nothing but their monster trucks and SUV's. Way to send mixed messages.

 

No mixed message. The message in the public's mind JUST shifted post-Katrina- how fast do you think they can adapt an engine? AZ, we're on the same page environmentally, but you gotta give folks time to catch up and adapt.

Its a lot easier to get the engineering right on a larger engine that has wider tolerances, and more lenient (truck) emissions requirements. Get what you can out the door when you can. It also makes sense to get the heavy pollution hitters switched over first.

ETOH is primarily available only in rural areas of the cornbelt...guess what vehicles far outsell sedans there (especially for fleet sales- the primary place where most FFVs end up).

NO production FFV engine is capable of meeting PZEV-type requirements as of today. From an emissions standpoint, a well-engineered gas-only engine is better than a FFV that emits more while on gasoline, when one considers that very very few people are able to get ETOH outside the cornbelt. The name of the regulatory game until VERY recently (like post-Katrina) was emissions, not saving oil. It takes at least a few years to be able to shift and bring new/adapted product to market.

Having said all this, look through my posts and recall that I am a HUGE booster of ETOH. Its in my (non-FFV) Explorer, despite having to pay 0.50 more per gallon for it here, only being able to get it at one pump locally, and getting yelled at by my wife for the check engine light (code 0174- lean mix). I also run straight ETOH/H20 (~160proof) through my mower when not using the battery mower and have gotten 2 neighbors to use me as a fuel source for their mowers.

A lawn mower run for 1 hour per week emits as much CO and NOx as a car driven for 500 miles. 2-strokers are even worse. If people are interested in starting somewhere today (well, in the spring), look at the humble lawnmower.

PS- just went ot the site...they're out of shirts...

 

Gonavy is pretty much right on the money. The only thing I would point out different is that both GM and Ford have been offering E85 capable vehicles for years. They just have not promoted them. Reason? Well, there are two.

1. Most people wouldn't know where to get E85, since the current petroleum infrastructure doesn't really support it.
2. The biggest customers for it are government and government contractor fleets. Many government and contractor fleets manage their own fuel supplies and can stock E85 or Compressed Natural Gas. In some cases, the ability to bid on a contract is driven by a requirement to offer a full line of alternative fuel vehicles. Since most of the fleets center around work trucks........

Both GM and Ford have had dialog with government & non-government agencies about the potential for E85 to reduce the dependence on foreign oil. There are a few roadblocks, two of which are sort of addressed in the recently passed Energy Bill. Oil refinery capacity and distribution systems have both limited E85 availability. The new Energy Bill provides incentives to build E85 refinery capacity and distribution systems. The third roadblock, raw material to make enough to replace significant amounts of gasoline, still needs some creative solutions.

Katrina & Rita have brought more focused attention to E85, but the background work was already being done, both in terms of GM and Ford development of vehicles capable of running on E85, and in terms of Energy Bill language that favors further development of an infrastructure to support expansion of E85 fuel availability.

Gonavy is on the money with respect to E85 capability to certify as AT-PZEV. The issue is not so much the emissions, but the evaporative qualities of ethanol wrt the evaporative qualities of gas. Getting the vehicle certify as having no evaporation from the fuel tank during heat soak cycles is the issue. There are smart people working on solutions.

Peace,

Martin

 

These E85-compatible engines as they are will get terrible FE running on E85. Saab's BioPower engines are set up to give the same FE and HP running on E85 as they do on regular gas. When are BioPower engines going to show up in the US?

 

What the heck is "extra full size"?

My dad had a flexible fuel Ford Ranger and didn't even know it till after he sold it.

 

Did you have to do anything different to get it to run right, such as re-jet the carb or something? From what I've read, you need to run a significantly richer mixture on ethanol than gasoline. There's only one E85 pump in Arizona too, and it's about a hundred miles from my home. Maybe if they put one a little closer I could try it out in my mower too. I only use mine maybe an hour per year though. Tiny yard, and grass doesn't grow so fast in the desert with a miserly watering schedule.

I'm just curious here, but why does evaporative emissions really matter on E85 anyway? I mean ethanol is non-toxic, who cares how much of it evaporates? I would think that if it mattered, we'd have to close up every bar and restaurant that serves alcohol and only offer it in sealed containers with some sort of anti-evap straws on them.

A quick trip over to FuelEconomy.govshows the FFV Suburban rated at 16mpg combined on gasoline and 12mpg combined on E85. I've read that as they perfect FFV's they hope to close the gap to around 80-85% as good FE on E85 as on gasoline, which seems very much worthwhile to me. Even the 75% it now achieves doesn't seem bad to me for a mostly non-toxic fuel.

Vehicles like the Suburban/Yukon XL (aka GMC Suburban) are so much larger than what today qualifies as a full-size truck/SUV that it's not really fair to call it the same class as a Jeep Grand Cherokee or Ford Explorer, which is what most folks think of when they think full-size SUV.

 

Possibly higher fillup cost aside (highly dependent on access to fuel, local incentives, etc), getting worse MPG is not negative here. E85 dumps ~12lbs of CO2 per gallon burned. Say you have to burn 133% more of it to go the same distance (75% of the mpg that you would get on gasoline). No, lets even say you have a crappy system and only get 2/3 the mpg...so you use 150% of the fuel... you're at 18lbs of CO2 to go as far as you would on a gallon of gasoline. Gasoline puts out 19.5lbs per gallon. E85 wins- jsut barely, but it does (ignoring the still-not-settled energy to make the stuff argument here)

AND...that CO2 was...CO2 just 6 months ago. Net gain ~zero, unlike burning gasoline which is putting CO2 that had been locked away for a billion years or so. Not to mention the almost nonexistent NOx, SO2, and CO.

I'll take the MPG hit any day of the week. It smells better coming out of the tailpipe, too- much better than gas. Sort of sweet.

Will it take a whoooole lot of consumer education to get people thinking in terms of a different yardstick than mpg? Hell yeah. But that's why Marketing people get paid- to shift consumers' minds. The science is 100%.

 

[QUOTE=AZCivic]Did you have to do anything different to get it to run right, such as re-jet the carb or something? From what I've read, you need to run a significantly richer mixture on ethanol than gasoline. There's only one E85 pump in Arizona too, and it's about a hundred miles from my home. Maybe if they put one a little closer I could try it out in my mower too. I only use mine maybe an hour per year though. Tiny yard, and grass doesn't grow so fast in the desert with a miserly watering schedule.

I thought I would have to drill out the carb, but I'm able to run mine and one neighbor as-is, just with the choke all the way up (max rich). I used homehooch (shhhhh...) With homehooch, ALL of the gas has to be flushed first. ETOH/H20 is fine, as long as there is nothing to cause phase separation (like residual gas). Another neighbor, I had to drill out the jet on his. He screwed up, though, and put some gas in with my fuel still in there. He may be gunshy this spring. I am not certain I can sustain batch production- I need about 3 pints per week per mower, and my little solar 'still can't keep up, not with sunny weekend-only operation. Not to mention the hassle of making the mash. I'm thinking of transitioning them over to E85 unless I start a full-on licensed co-op and scale up.

I'm just curious here, but why does evaporative emissions really matter on E85 anyway? I mean ethanol is non-toxic, who cares how much of it evaporates? I would think that if it mattered, we'd have to close up every bar and restaurant that serves alcohol and only offer it in sealed containers with some sort of anti-evap straws on them.

I would bet money that it doesn't matter ( although ETOH has a much higher vapor pressure than gas I am not sure there are no smog/ozone precursors, and there is still some gasoline in E85), but the law requires ZERO evap emissions. Doesn't matter what's evaporating. The law was written with only gasoline in mind. It took over a decade to get it where it is, care to guess how long it will take to change? Far far FAR easier solution is for smart engineers to just make it work within the existing regulatory system rather than have dumb politicians and non-experts mess with the regs. And so it goes.


A quick trip over to FuelEconomy.govshows the FFV Suburban rated at 16mpg combined on gasoline and 12mpg combined on E85. I've read that as they perfect FFV's they hope to close the gap to around 80-85% as good FE on E85 as on gasoline, which seems very much worthwhile to me. Even the 75% it now achieves doesn't seem bad to me for a mostly non-toxic fuel.

Yep. Just posted separately on that topic.