With that new gasahol fuel coming on line wonder if Acura would have a car that would run on it, or if any aftermarket kits would be available. This would be an interesting question to pose , or ponder.

 

That new fuel sucks! (E85) Even The DNR hates the stuff. You get less mileage with it too

 

Ahh... I think I'll just suck it up, take one for the team and pour a bottle of everclear in my tank!


Seriously though, I cant picture acura going into hybrids yet. They aren't planning on it are they?

 

Honda already has hybrids. the accord, civic, and insite.

 

I'm not surprised if we see accord's J30 hybrid engine into an acura car. But gasohol will require a totally different engine design = lots of research and development. but honda is ahead of the pack at a lot of alternative fuels. the FCX in europe is pretty sweet

 

what the hell is gasahol?

 

The original question was about using a fuel that's 85% (E85) ethanol and 15% gasoline, which has nothing to do with hybrids. Hybrids are vehicles with both a gasoline engine and an electric motor, e.g., Toyota Prius.

My guess is that a lot of companies will make engines that can run E85. GM already makes a number of them. Countries like Brazil run almost entirely on ethanol.

As Kris mentioned, ethanol has less BTUs/gallon, so there's less power and less mpg when compared to gasoline.

Many years ago you could get a gasoline/ethanol fuel that was, IIRC, 5% ethanol that any vehicle could use. Texaco marketed it as gasahol. It didn't last long. I ran it and didn't notice any difference, except the 'buzz' you'd get from filling your tank.

 

And to add to that alot fuels now are being mixed with 10% ethanol (which i hate) I have seen a drop in mileage running that in my TL and try to avoid it if possible

 

ethanol has a octane rating of 116, u will need a car with super high compression ratio (~17:1) for it to run efficient. with normal 10-11:1 on octane engines, your mileage will suck

 

Yeah, that's all we get in Michigan; 10% ethanol.

 

Yea, thanks to WI legislature We now have the "option" to use it by mandating that all stations carry it. Its Bull Shit! You know the stuff isnt good when the DNR is even lobying to get it removed.

 

Just thinking and oringanlly posing the premise that we could use E85 ,or Honda/Acura could build a TL. and or retrrofit our cars to use E85. Would be nice to keep or money in the USA instead of it sent to Arab countries to sent back to us as terrorism,or Islamic fundalmentalism. Another question for us in the frozen north is how E85 would behave at subzero, or cold temps as in Minnesota .

 

Why E85 is shown to have worse mileage, so in the long run you are spending as much as you would with regular oil. Plus it takes more energy to produce the amount of E85 than it does to do the same to refine gas. E85 right now isnt as cosst effective as many would like to believe. And only a fraction (less than 4%) of our oil comes from iraq the rest is from the rest of the world, so we arent funding any thing. They have been running E85 up here for awhile, so it works fine in cold temps

 

Yeah, I know that Honda has had hybrid technology for a while, but what I meant to say is that I dont see it venturing into the acura family anytime soon. I havn't driven the new hybrid accord, and actually the only hybrid vehicle I have driven is the new Lexus RX400h. It was actually pretty impressive. But yeah, I dont see that coming out in Acura any time soon!

 

The only advantage I can see to E85 is that is can be produced domestically. One of the 'nice' things about high fuel prices is that many fuels, e.g., ethanol, oil from coal, etc., that were not economically feasible (without a govt subsidy) have become viable. Personally, I'd be glad to spend the same $$$ if it meant reducing our dependance on foreign oil.

 

Rumor has it that the redesigned MDX will have a Hybrid version. Honda has to compete in that market.