• Apr 20, 2006
Could it be? Toyota is taking a page from a book by General Motors and other U.S. automakers by announcing plans to offer flex-fuel vehicles that run on E85 fuel or gasoline by 2008. Toyota had resisted the urge up until now, due to the risk of fuel corroding the rubber engine seals, but the company isn't exactly one to stay out of an alternative fuel party for very long. Initially, the Japanese carmaker will offer the models in ethanol-happy Brazil, and rather than announce plans to expand into the U.S., Toyota suggested that Americans switch to blends of fuel with 10 percent ethanol (which most traditional gasoline engines can handle), making the gasoline savings more widespread.

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      • 8 Years Ago
      E-85 is a good thing and all, but we've had a problem around here with it, no idea if it's happened other places or not. My truck takes the E-85. My gas mileage stayed pretty close to the same. I no longer use the E-85, because the big gas companies have bought it all out, and the pumps are charging an average of $.60 cents MORE per gallon to use it. We only have 2 gas stations here in the city that sell the E-85, and the last check at the pump, it was $3.15 per gallon, and only $2.59 for regular gas. When I first started using it, it was about $.80 per gallon cheaper than the regular gas. I wish they had someone to regulate that.
      • 8 Years Ago
      I would gladly buy one of these vehicles if the fuel was available. The northeast has no E85 stations. I could pay the price of having the E85 vehicle however there is not E85 to put into it. So, because the E85 engines are only offered in vehicles that are less fuel efficient in general, I would have a vehicle that had the potential to slow green house gas emmisions but could not because E85 is not available. Why don't they offer a smaller vehicle that is more fuel efficient in general, so the people who are waiting for the E85 station will not be spilling so many green house gasses?
      Eduardo J Rodriguez
      • 8 Years Ago
      Blending Ethanol with Gasoline was here in San Angelo, Texas in the early 80"s. Excellent fuel. Burns cleaner and better. Only problem, Ethanol will clean your gas tank, fuel lines, etc so be ready to change the fuel filter often until everything is clean. Reason it was stopped, the increase of price and dropping of the energy saving incentive given by the goverment. At that time Ethanol was price at $ 1.70 per gl.
      • 8 Years Ago
      Poeple, quit bickering about the nonsense of which automaker is/was first. It's all meaningless!
      The important thing is to actually start using the alternative fuel. FYI to everyone, corn is the most expensive and non-efficient way to make ethanol. Sugar beets are by far more efficient and cheaper with far less bi-product. They've been taking advantage of this process in South America for years.
      • 8 Years Ago
      I have two cars of 2005, GM. and niether car can use flex fuel. I think gas price would $200 a gallon before we American get off our buts and do something about it.
      Mike Horvath
      • 8 Years Ago
      My Condolences to all of you dreamers and math deprived individuals who think that ethanol is going to save anyone anything, including the environment. Even if one day in the distant future we can produce 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol per year this amounts to just 5% of the current US motor fuel market of 9.1 MILLION BARRELS/DAY. (one gasoline barrel or crude oil barrel is equivalent to 42 gallons) And remember that the US Government is paying a 53 cents/gallon subsidy to ethanol producers meaning that a company like Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) is getting $53 million of our tax money to produce their 1 billion gallons of ethanol. I hope everyone is proud to be adding to ADM's profits and executive bonuses. Buying a vehicle that gets 40-50 miles per gallon would help the environment at least three times as much as burning ethanol. Best Wishes!
      Foster Beall
      • 8 Years Ago
      Ohio has been using a blend of 90 percent gasoline/10 percent ethanol for years. Why is there no saving at the pumps there? Could it be by adding the ethanol and keeping the prices up, the profits are bigger?
      • 8 Years Ago
      It's about time Toyota caught up with the 21st century. Way to bandwagon.
      Ken Church
      • 8 Years Ago
      Ron Wagner has a good idea but the Federal laws will have to change to make it a reality. Right now a person is allowedto distill approximately 200 gallons of product per year. That won't get me through the summer much less the entire year. All we need is the "revenue man" snooping about looking for illegal "stills"
      • 8 Years Ago
      I'm with Don, man if this was turned the other way the GM haters would be all over it where are all the posts for Toyota being in late to party.
      • 8 Years Ago
      I am a US citizen with property in Brasil and US. Three quarters of automobiles sold in Brasil are flex fuel runing on alcohol or gas. The price of a gallon of alcohol there is about $1.30 US. It is made from sugar cane. It bothers me to no end, when I hear President Bush announce there is new technology on the horizon in the form of ethanol, and we should get off our addiction to oil and become more self sufficient. Then we hear that we should do this by the year 2025. We are too complacement as a nation, to allow the oil companies and lobbyists to continue the delay of this fuel, and autombiles that will handle both fuels. I keep hearing Brasil is a third world country. What are we if we can't keep pace with them. No excuses, get out and vote the politicians out of office that don't respond to this issue!
      • 8 Years Ago
      Be aware that growing corn takes tons of fossil fuels: chemical fertilizers and pesticides are made from oil, tractors run on oil, and what about soil erosion from plowing all the soil to grow the corn? And will the corn be genetically engineered? Ethanol isn't the green product people are making it out to be. The world is awash in salt water in the oceans. Sunlight can be harnessed to make electricity that can split H2O into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen can be used to power cars with no pollution (the combustion product is H2O). Now THAT'S a green solution.
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