Flex-Fuel Vehicles

Flex-Fuel Vehicles

It seems as though the phrase of the week is "Flex-Fuel Vehicles." It's been on TV, the newspaper, blogs, and almost everywhere. It's popularity sparked by rising gas prices, and the new gasoline additive conversion at gas pumps everywhere. We've already begun to switch to ethanol by requiring it at the pumps.

Flex Fuel Vehicle makers like Chevrolet have begun the live green, go yellow campaign, which asks "What if every vehicle in America was yellow?" They're referring to E85 Ethanol, an alternative fuel made of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline.

I have begun to contemplate purchasing a flex fuel vehicle, but wonder if this is going to turn into a branding war like beta-max and VHS? A flex fuel vehicle might be the direction we're headed in, and then Hydrogen takes over or Electric. This, I think is exactly why we are going to have such a hard time getting off our dependency of oil. Until there is a clear winner of the alternative fuel war, then the American public is forced to buy the more secure option: a standard gasoline powered car.
But you say the Flex Fuel Vehicle allows for both. Right, and that's the reason I think most manufacturers are leaning in that direction. It's like the stop smoking patch of fuels. But the increased costs of purchase, possible lack of reliability and inability to find a mechanic to work on the technology is the reason why most people will heed caution in considering a flex fuel vehicle.

I would skip paying any extra money for a flex-fuel capable vehicle. If you can get it for the same money as a standard vehicle, then sure, it's worth a try; it certainly won't hurt anything since they will still run fine on standard gasoline. However, realize that the vehicle actually gets WORSE mileage while running on E85; now, if the E85 offered at a gas pump is quite a bit cheaper than the standard gasoline, then it will work out to cost less. However, a flex-fuel vehicle running on E85 gets approximately 30% less mileage than it does with gasoline (you'd have to google it to get exact numbers).

Unfortunately, I don't think ethanol is going to solve much as far as our dependency on oil. Now hydrogen powered vehicles... THAT's where the technology should move towards. Totally clean power; no harmful emissions at all.