Fifty cents isn't enough difference. Fort Wayne, Indiana locations has been at $1.00 less for E85 for several weeks.

When you use E85 fuel car runs like crap and gets worse fuel milage. No one knows the long term damage to your car after using ethanol.

At $4.00 for E0 you need to price E85 at about $3.00 for an equal cost per mile. With E85 you can also see drivability issues in hot weather. Bottom line - ethanol needs to be priced at 66% or less of the price of gasoline to make it work in the gas tank.

Lane is correct- 50 cents is not enough. What we need to judge the economics of E85's use to the consumer is the fact that flex fuel vehicles typically consume on average 15-24% more E85 than gas.(which by the way are still built as optimized for 87 octane gas- not 105 octane E85- they are only adapted for high alcohol via primarily ECU programming). The actual range of % difference varies by the engine design, ECU factory programming, and the use the vehicle is put into. The best FFV's run at a 5% reduction- the very worst are at 27%. 27% is the average BTU content difference between gas and E85-- not 66% Thomas. 66% would be pure ethanol- not the 70-85% level that is in E85. From this you can see that the typical FFV more volume of E85 -BUT less btu's per mile. Sam- My 3 coworkers and I have driven over 500,000 miles on E85 in our personal and work vehicles- they do not run like crap unless the automaker has an error in the ECU program (Ford and GM have both had recalls in limited model/year ranges to fix their error) or if you put too much ethanol in a non-FFV. E85 is a high performance fuel that many bracket racers and other racers are moving to where track rules allow. E85 (and denatured ethanol) allows the engine to be built to the high compression or high boost that no other gasoline except for very expensive 112 octane race fuel will allow. If automakers knew that you were only able to put in E85 and they did not have to allow for gasoline- they could easily build a dedicated E85 engine for the average car with a smaller high compression or turbo boosted engine that is far far more efficient for E85. Such a vehicle would be almost the same MPG as a comparable car running NL (within 5%) and consume approx. 20-24% less btu's per mile driven than one on gasoline.

Folks should try some of the other blends that are available. We have several in our office, with cars and trucks that are flex fuel, and depending on the vehicle we are seeing an increase in Mileage if E portion is between 30 and 50% . We are fortunate, CHS has several pumps in the area that allow you to mix your own, 20, 30, 50, 85. Still cheaper, and more mileage.......now that's a winning combination.