Had a 60 degree day here in Michigan a couple days ago.

What a difference 20 degrees makes!

Was able to get 67 MPG on the way home from work!

I was trying to keep the IMPG gauge at 75 while driving, for as much as possible. When a stop was approaching, I just coasted in. If I took my foot off the accelerator too soon, I would do the EV Glide thing.

I love getting 67 MPG when gas prices are $2.75!

I like how my car gets better gas mileage with the warmer temps and it just so happens that gas prices are at their highest during the summer.

 

I'm with you - amazing difference. With everything changing at once, though - temps, car getting broken in, higher tire pressure and learning to drive it more efficiently it's hard to tell how much each contributes. But who cares, spring is here - woohoo!!

 

And in a little bit those of us that have to use winter gas will get the switch over to summer gas and our numbers will go up even more

 

Quick note on tire pressure. Before my 67 MPG trip, one of my tires were punctured. I had inflated them to the max. After the puncture, I put the pressure to the recommended PSI on the inside driver's side door. THEN, I got 67 MPG. So I'm not buying the whole "max tire pressure yields better MPG". All it yields is an increased probability of a tire puncture, at least with my experience.

 

Temps here in MA have been rather nice, around 70F. I filled up on Fri and did a 50 mile highway trip and the gauge was reading in mid-high 50's for mpg. Also, the good mpg's may be short lived here in MA as the legislature is pushing to ban MTBE from all blends and sub'ing ethanol in its place, shoot, there goes the mpg's.........

 

Don't be too tough on ethanol. Yes, it does not have quite the BTU per gallon that regular gas has. But at 10% alcohol, 90% gasoline I doubt you'll see much difference. It's all we have here (for regular, at least)

And btw it's rated at 89 octane rather than 87 for non-ethanol regular. And it's cheaper (here, at least). So those that want to use higher octane because it makes them feel better (or because they truly need it) can have their cake and eat it too!

 

Huh? I know what the EV glide thing is, but why wouldn't you want to EV glide to a stop? How is "coasting" to a stop different than getting into EV glide mode when approaching a stop?

 

Uh oh. Now I have to rant.

When they began putting MTBE in our gas the price went up and they told us FE would go down. Then when they took out MTBE they said the price would have to go up again. The reason MTBE is being removed is because it's a cancer causing material and it has been found in our drinking water since it was introduced. Do you want your kids to get cancer so you can supposedly improve your mileage? So now we're putting ethanol in our gas to reduce pollution, except that studies have shown that it doesn't reduce pollution.

The whole deal with oxygenates in gasoline is a crock. Since California has dropped below the EPA's critical levels of air pollution it has asked the EPA for an exemption from adding ethanol. The EPA still says no, you have to do it. Why? Because the agribusiness lobby wants us to buy ethanol, and they have enough clout in Washington to make it happen.

It takes almost a gallon of fossil fuel to make a gallon of ethanol. It's not helping the environment. It's only making some farmers rich while giving the innocent public the illusion that something is being done for the environment.

End of rant.

 

http://www.ethanol.org/pdfs/energy_balance_ethanol.pdf

"Corn ethanol is energy efficient, as indicated by an energy ratio of 1.34; that is, for every Btu dedicated to producting ethanol there is a 34 percent energy gain."

"Only about 17 percent of the energy used to produced ethanol comes from liquid fuels, such as gasoline and diesel fuel. For every 1 Btu of liquid fuel used to produce ethanol, there is a 6.34 Btu gain."

Consumer Federation of America - Over a barrel - Why aren't oil companies using ethanol to lower gasoline prices?

"Consumers who purchase gasoline blended with 10% ethanol could be saving as much as 8 cents a gallon if oil companies purchased ethanol instead of importing more expensive foreign oil."

How Much Energy Does It Take to Make a Gallon of Ethanol?

"Assuming an average efficiency corn farm and an average efficiency ethanol plant, the total energy used in growing the corn and processing it into ethanol and other products is 81,090 BTUs. Ethanol contains 84,100 BTUs per gallon and the replacement energy value for the other co-products is 27,579 BTUs. Thus, the total energy output is 111,679 BTUs and the net energy gain is 30,589 BTUs for an energy output-input ratio of 1.38:1."

The study results suggest that corn ethanol is energy efficient, as indicated by an energy output/input ratio of 1.67.

 

Coming from an ethanol advocacy group, that is probably the most optimistic number you'll find. At the pessimistic end, some academic studies have concluded that ethanol production consumes more energy than it produces. The truth is probably somewhere in middle. The main point is that while ethanol is being promoted as a clean fuel that doesn't add green house gasses to our atmosphere, it in fact still adds at least 70% as much green house gas, and probably more.

Another part of the equation is that every bushel of corn that is used to produce ethanol fuel is not being used in the food supply. Thus, the ethanol is coming at the expense of higher food cost because it competes with the corn you buy at the supermarket, the corn syrup in your Coke, and the feed used to grow the beef and chicken you eat.

When it comes to solving our environmental and oil import problems, ethanol is voodoo.