vtsnowedin wrote: One good thing is the highest grade gas from Canada has no ethanol in it so it is better for two cycle engines like chain saws and string trimmers.
I just saw maybe three weeks ago that the EPA or some other federal alphabet soup agency has authorized all states to hike E-10 which has been around since the 1980's up to E-15 in hopes of placating the Iowa farmers lobbyists. The stupidity to me is that the Feds have not mandated that all cars sold new in the USA after date X (which should have been 31Dec1993 IMO) by E-85 compliant. That simple rules change done when E-85 first became available would have been a trivial change in manufacturing new vehicles and by 2003 the majority of ICE gasoline engines would have been fully flex fuel. In point of fact I have seen many claims that the only difference between a GM or Ford E-85 vehicle today is one sensor on the fuel system and a costless switch in computer code supporting the new sensor. The reason for this is simple, they had to produce a minimum number of E-85 vehicles and quickly figured out that the trivial cost of using the more robust fuel system parts and seals for all new vehicles was less inventory complexity and led to greater long run savings that switching types between E-85 and E-10 compliant systems.
Every vehicle built after about 2000 AD in America has E-85 compliant fuel tanks, lines and seals throughout. That means instituting a full compliance rule for the 2024 model year would cost only in the addition of a single fuel sensor and a software change. Brazil has had E-100 universal compliance since the 1970's when the government mandated it so they can operate their civilian and military equipment on everything from E-0 to E-100 and every increment in between. The fact that automotive manufacturers selling into the US market have not had the same standards as Brazil for decades without major issues demonstrates the power of lobbying in American legislative practices.
Edit to add relevant informationLINKWhile many North Americans may not know it, Brazil presently leads the world in deploying biofuels for road vehicles.
Specifically, a majority of cars sold in Brazil--especially lower-priced high-volume models built in the country--can run either on gasoline or pure ethanol.
The modern history dates back to 1975, when the South American country began its “Programa Nacional Álcohol” to counteract the soaring oil and gasoline prices that followed the 1973 oil crisis.
Even before then, however, ethanol had been blended into Brazil's gasoline supplies, starting with a 5-percent mix in 1931.
During World War II, with German submarine attacks threatening the country's oil supply, the "gasoline" used to fuel cars of the 1920s and 1930s could contain as much as 50 percent ethanol,
The country's use of ethanol over the last 40 years can be divided into two eras: the ethanol-only-car era, and the flex-fuel era.
From cane field to tank
But following the 1973 oil-price shock, the country's main agricultural crop, sugar cane, was pressed into duty for a new purpose: it served as the feedstock for ethanol refineries, creating a largely renewable liquid fuel that could be used to replace gasoline altogether in powering internal combustion engines.
Cars capable of running on ethanol arrived on the Brazilian market in the late 1970s. In those days, before electronic fuel injection replaced carburetors, they could run either on E100 ethanol or conventional gasoline—but not both.
Those first ethanol-powered cars included popular models from Fiat, Renault, Volkswagen, and other makers. The Fiat 147 was the first commercially available ethanol-capable car sold in dealerships, starting in July 1979.
The Volkswagen Sedan 1300 entered production that year as well, and by October 1980, the rest of the VW lineup in Brazil offered ethanol-capable models.
Still, many of those cars suffered from a reluctance to start in cold weather, and sometimes erratic running characteristics.
Cars for the poor
Ethanol was then cheaper than gasoline—even after accounting for the lower energy content that produces fewer miles per gallon—but many Brazilians today recall those early E100 vehicles as “poor peoples’ cars,” bought solely because they were cheaper to own and run...
Since 1993, the mix has stood at E22, or 22 percent ethanol—though the percentage is set annually, varying between 20 and 25 percent, depending on each year’s sugar crop yield.
A new era of ethanol use arrived in the early 2000s, when far more capable computerized engine-control units and port fuel injection allowed the introduction of flex-fuel cars. They could run on E100, E22 petrol, or any mix in between that might be produced by refilling a tank with a different fuel...
The first carmaker to launch such flex-fuel vehicles in Brazil was Volkswagen. It introduced the first Gol capable of running on any liquid fuel (including the G100 gasoline found in Argentina) in March 2003.
Built since 1980, the VW Gol has now been Brazil’s most popular vehicle for 27 years. Volkswagen do Brasil has built more than 7.5 million of the five-door hatchback, which would be considered a subcompact in North America. (The small VW is also a major export earner for Brazil, with more than 1 million Gols sold in 60 countries around the world.)
Volkswagen now builds flex-fuel capability into every engine and every car manufactured in Brazil. Close to a dozen other carmakers do the same, including Chevrolet, Fiat, Ford, Honda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Peugeot, Renault, and Toyota...
For what its worth Henry Ford built Ethanol flexibility into his Model A engine of the 1920's and Ford Motor Company only dropped the flexibility from their designs after Ford Sr. retired. IOW it could have been a normal part of American automotive engineering for almost a century if not for super cheap gasoline and government policies encouraging Gasoline and Diesel mono-fuel systems as standard.
On another note the International Harvester company built hundreds of thousands of flex fuel engines both for tractors/Heavy Equipment and stationary engines that could run equally well on gasoline or diesel fuel at the flip of a lever by the operator. They did it to have a cheap convenient warm up system to heat the engine up running on Gasoline before switching over to run on Diesel but you could quite effectively stay in Gasoline burning mode if you so desired if say there was a Diesel shortage in your area for some reason.
