

Courtesy of MSNBC







Comments     Threshold


RE: e85?
By moonraker3000 on 1/8/2007 3:00:58 PM , Rating: 2
The only problem with E85 is that it ONLY has 85,000 btu's of energy, whereas normal Gasoline has around 110,000.

E85 only has about ~75% of the energy that normal gasoline has, which means that E85 is not as effecient as many people make it out to be... this is especially funny for cars that use E85 cause their [the people] cars need to get refueled about 35% more...

lol i'm never going to buy this car now because it uses E85, not only is E85 ineffecient, it's not even available where I live!!! (and trust me i wanted this car... I would llove an electric for around town and stuff)

RE: e85?
By Hoser McMoose on 1/9/2007 3:47:36 PM , Rating: 2
Ethanol also has a higher octane rating and can work with much higher compression ratios and therefore higher thermal efficiency. Given the way they are using this engine at a fixed RPM rate and that it's a small 1L turbocharged engine, GM *SHOULD* be able to make use of this higher efficiency. Getting such an engine to within 10% of the fuel efficiency of a straight gasoline engine shouldn't be much of a problem.

Of course, that does nothing to solve the issue of E85 fuel being almost non-existent in most parts of the US and abroad. Nor does it solve the issue of ethanol from corn being mainly a scam to subsidize farmers and really being an extremely poor fuel source.

