Finding E85
Two weeks ago I rented a car to drive from Wisconsin to Indianapolis for a meeting, and when I got to the rental office I was given the choice of two minivans: a Toyota Sienna and a Chevy Uplander. I wasn’t very thrilled with my choices, but then I noticed that the Chevy was a FlexFuel vehicle, and my attitude changed.
Here in the Midwest, E85 is cheap and plentiful. It normally sells for about 60 cents a gallon less than a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline. What could be better? I could go to Indianapolis and back and use a fraction of the gasoline, and spend a fraction of the money, that I would have used in a regular vehicle!
There was no way of knowing what was already in the Uplander’s tank of course, but I was hopeful that the previous renter had had the wisdom to fill up with E85. So I set out for Indianapolis, confident that I would be making at least a small difference.
I only used three-quarters of a tank on the drive to Indy, so when I set out for home the next day I knew the moment of truth would come, oh… about midway through Illinois. And Illinois, like Wisconsin and Indiana, is corn country. I knew there would be E85 stations along the interstate every few miles, offering cheap, clean, domestically-produced ethanol at bargain prices. I even started seeing Burma-shave style rhyming roadsigns in cornfields! Oh yes, this was ethanol heaven, for sure.
But as my gas gauge sank closer and closer to ‘E’, I started to worry. I hadn’t seen any sign that the filling stations along the highway were selling E85, and when I started pulling off into the small towns of eastern Illinois, I found station after station selling straight gasoline, and nothing more. I even asked a clerk at one filling station if she knew of any stations in the area that sold E85. She looked at me blankly and said, “E-what?”
Discouraged, I put $20 of regular gas in the tank and kept looking, but I came up empty. No E85 in sight. What could have gone wrong? Well, I could have done the smart thing and checked the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition Website (www.e85fuel.com) and found the addresses to 170 stations in Illinois that sell E85–you read that right: 170! But I was not smart. I wanted to see if I could find the magic fuel unaided, and in that I failed. I drove home on expensive, dirty, imported gasoline, but filled up with E85 in my hometown before returning the van.
Lesson learned: the good stuff is out there, but for now, doing the right thing involves a little legwork. Next time I’ll know better. And maybe, next time those E85 pumps will be a little more visible to the unaided eye.
April 23rd, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Well, my friend, you answered your own question! Sorry there weren’t more stations to just happen upon, but we do put a lot of work into mapping the addresses of all the stations on the NEVC website. Like Fireman Jim said to me yesterday when I was a little lost going down to a fuel expo in New Jersey, “You do have a map, don’t you?” Sure enough, once I pulled out my information source, I was all set and going properly in the right direction. See you in Vegas if you go- let me know.
Rhea Courtney Bozic
April 29th, 2008 at 8:03 am
I read your story about trying to find E85 on your drive to Indianapolis and found it interesting. I started using E85 exclusively on January 1, 2007, seventeen months now that I’ve used it. I live in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area but “home” is in Colorado so I find myself driving out that way periodically. Not long after I started using E85 and in my quest to locate E85 stations using the Internet, I found the DOE website http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/index.html This site is very good at locating stations near you or you can use the Route Mapper feature under the Alternative Fueling Station Locator to find stations en route to where you want to go.
June 13th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
SO THIS MEANS THAT WE SHOULD ALL INVEST IN CORN BEFORE “THEY” JACK THE PRICE OF E85 UP SO HIGH WE STILL WON’T BE ABLE TO AFFORD TO DRIVE?