Open Letter to Large Fleet Owners
February 5, 2013
It has recently become clear that many of the Flex Fueled vehicles currently on the road, and in many fleets, which for years have not used E85 in their tanks because the reduced mileage did not compensate for the cost difference in the fuels, may get BETTER mileage than they are with gasoline, by using E20-E50 blends.
The background: Experiments in Minnesota, that formed the background of its EPA waiver to use 20% ethanol in all vehicles in 2013 have shown that some blends, say 20% for the Flex Fuel 2007 Impala, the gas mileage actually increased over the mileage obtained using gasoline by 15%, going from 23.48 to 27.07 miles per gallon. Also interestingly, the mileage at both 40% and 50% ethanol did not decrease. Furthermore, ethanol is cheaper than gasolinel, and it will become even cheaper as we start making it from natural gas and wastes.
Clearly if your fleet managers had the option, and with E85 vehicles there is NO legal barrier, and you new the options for the vehicles in your fleet, they would opt for 20% ethanol in the Impala, for example, for economic reasons, unless ethanol was cheap enough that maintaining the mileage further reduced their costs with its increased use. Either of these moves would be a good comprise, lowering costs, helping to get us off oil, and lowering pollution: certainly better than just using gasoline.
This information could be obtained from the automobile companies, and this should be our first source. Secondly, the EPA should do these tests and present the data. If neither of these is obtainable, a third party testing lab should be commissioned to do the tests. The use of this data for your fleets could save a significant amount of money, and enable your company to be greener. If you don't refuel your own fleet, like the USPS, the driver can be given a table telling him/her how much E85 to add at fill-up time, and then to fill the rest of the tank with reformulated gasoline.
Sincerely,
Robert Falco, PhD, Director if IER