E85 for 85c in Cali
One of the things Saab USA have most likely been waiting for before bringing BioPower to the market is for E85 to become more available in California. Cali’s got an economy bigger then most countries all on its own. It’s a big market and Saab would be more comfortable knowing that some people will actually be able to make use of their BioPower technology there. Or maybe they don’t care at all and I’m just saying that. Anyway….
Today, GM sponsored a two-hour E85 sale at one of the few public outlets where you can purchase E85 in the whole state. And given that it was E85 that was on sale, it was appropriate that they’d charge just 85 cents for it. Well, 85.9 to be exact.
1985 Gripen headed on down to fill up his flex-fuel company car:
What a freakin’ nightmare that was. The good news: yes, I got my company a tank of fuel for only 85 cents a gallon. The bad news: the line was over an hour and a half long! The line wrapped around the block and backed onto San Vicente quite a ways down.
So totally NOT worth it. If I’d known it would be such a wait I wouldn’t have stayed, but it was one of those things where I kept thinking, “well, I’ve been waiting THIS long, it’d be a shame to leave now…”
I got into the line at 12:20 and got up to the pump at 1:55. I drove out at 2:00. There was still a long line of cars when I left. I was so relieved to be done with it that I left instead of stick around and see if there was a riot when the station stopped selling at 2:00pm!
All the suits there, who I assume work for GM, looked giddy about the turnout but I kept wondering if the whole experience being so stressful now makes people associate buying ethanol with waiting in line! At 85 cents a gallon you’re going to get a lot of takers. At $2.97 a gallon, I’m not so sure.
There was also a big article about E85 yesterday in the LA Times.
Gripen spoke to the reporter on the phone for around 40 minutes a few weeks ago while whe was putting the story together, supposedly providing background and his piece of public opinion on the fuel. Unfortunately his contribution was left out in the final edit.
——
In other news on E85 in the US - There’s going to be 20 new E85 outlets opening in Texas soon.
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You mean 86c.
:p
“I can’t read the sign, but the price for premium is 3.25 and 8/10!”
“8/10? That’s Donnie’s Discount’s Gas!”
Made for a much better headline that way
Grip - hate to say it but you do sound a tiny bit spoilt here. 86c is VERY cheap fuel, no matter what and so a llong, long line is to be expected. 86c works out around 1/4 of the price that it takes to get a line snaking out of a gas station here: ie AUD$1.20 per litre.
***** insert token inflamatory remark about the war in Iraq and/or the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld business interests**********
Back to normal viewing:
It sounds like an interesting stunt which probably told more about peoples hip-pocket nerve than their thinking on E85though.
Wow regularly $3.85 a gallon for E85! This is why it won’t work in the US….just too darn expensive for less MPG.
Regardless, it’s a start in the right direction…
Now do the the real math. 35-45mpg. 14 gallon tank, B99 @$3.89 gal. If your doing at least 50-mile driving everyday…and GWBs GWOT oil price stays over $100/barrel, 25mpg is a cramper.
Corn-based ethanol remains a hoax.
PT: the fact that I was there simply to support ethanol might be why I come off as spoiled. The company I work for pays for the fuel in that car so I had no personal financial interest in waiting in line for an hour and a half.
$0.86 is indeed cheap fuel and that’s why there was such a line, but there is a point when the frustration of waiting in line for an hour and a half isn’t worth saving $40 on a fill-up. I mean, how much gas did I waste idling in that line? Also, this station is not exactly close to my home. It’s about a 45 minute round-trip away.
joemama: where did you get $3.85 from? It’s normally around $2.97 for E85 there. You can see the price of regular unleaded there on the sign. That makes E85 about 10% cheaper right now, which unfortunately doesn’t offset the decreased fuel economy of ethanol enough to make E85 cheaper per-mile than regular unleaded. However, if the price of regular unleaded climbs and they can keep E85 stable, the gap might just climb over 30%, but I doubt it. That’s part of what the L.A. Times article is about. It’s pointing-out that in order to use ethanol you have to do it as an altruistic endeavor now because you’re not saving any money, you’re actually paying MORE for it.
fred: until they can get the NOx emissions down on diesels I don’t think they’ll be sold here in California. However, you do make a compelling argument, especially when you look at the reduced CO2 emissions with bio-diesel.
I see corn ethanol as a short term solution that serves more to develop the production and distribution technology and infrastructure for synthetic liquid fuels. The longer term solution is ethanol from cellulose and MSW or synthetic fuel from coal, old tires, etc. There are many potential technologies out there. So dumping on corn ethanol because it isn’t particularly cost effective makes about as much since as dumping on windmills did 20 years ago because the technology back then wasn’t very cost effective.
gripen - Because it was below the BioDiesel and the “3″ was missing from the price, it looks like they just took the 3 away for the promotion.
The interesting thing for me is that premium is only 6% more than regular. I get at least that much improvement in mileage in my 9-3, so that makes the premium cheaper to run than regular.
Here in Canada, premium is almost always 15% more than regular
Bernard: typically here in SoCal “plus” unleaded is ten cents more expensive per-gallon than regular unleaded and premium is ten cents more than that. So the percentage difference will vary depending on the price of the gas, with a twenty-cent difference between regular unleaded and premium regardless of the price.
Occasionally they price regular (their top-seller) a few cents more than ten cents cheaper than “plus” to attract customers. For example, at the local gas station by my house the other day regular unleaded was selling for $3.39, with “plus” selling for 3.51 and premium at $3.61.
It’s all a psychological game, like the whole “9/10″ thing. Nobody looks at it as 86 cents a gallon, as it is truly closer to ($0.859), they see only the big numbers.
This is my hope for E85. Though we LOGICALLY know that ethanol costs more per-gallon than gasoline, the big sign says, “E85 $2.97, regular unleaded $3.33″ and we think we’re getting a “deal” buying E85.
The opposite goes for diesel. That $3.89 price on the sign makes people say, “wow, I’m sure glad my car isn’t a diesel!” It’s stupid, but it’s true.
joemama: no, the 85 cent price was a play on the name “E85″. Checking the Conserv Fuel website I see that E85 is selling for $2.999 per-gallon today. They keep it just below that magic psychological $3 barrier as long as they can, it appears. I would imagine E85 is much more expensive here in SoCal than in the mid-west due to the distance it has to be trucked-in, the low demand for it, and the fact that it’s still very much a niche fuel here.