Thanks. More info on E85 in Minnesota and other upper Midwest states here:

http://www.CleanAirChoice.org

I live in Duluth, and I spot blend E85 and E10 (all gasoline sold in Minnesota is 10% ethanol, for any who don't already know) at my local Citgo. I add two gallons E85 with 12 gallons E10 for a full tank, and the resulting E20 mixture runs just as well as E10 in my 1991 Chrysler sedan with a 3.3 liter V6. I have noticed a SMALL difference in fuel economy; 18.8 mpg on E10 in mixed driving, and 18.5 mpg on E20.
I do not know if others would experience a fuel economy drop of only 2% as I have, but it is certainly not bad considering that E85 sells for only $2.99/gallon these days in Duluth; 20% less expensive than 87 octane E10 at $3.59/gallon.

If we could get large scale cellulose ethanol, we might be able to distribute E85 across the country. I would like to see every car in sold in the U.S. be an FFV. It costs so little and we would be ready for biofuels.

There is not enough cropland area for even a tenth of the car fuel to be provided by corn ethanol. The price at the pump does not reflect the price of the subsidies. Fuel ethanol does not save the US economy any money and it does not save the CO2 level either. Forests would take CO2 out of the air; corn does not when used as fuel. Haiti used up all of its cellulose for fuel and only has three percent of its trees left. There are not enough cornstalks and trees in the US for its fuel requirements.

Methanol from coal or natural gas should be the standard US car fuel. ..HG..

GM 's sudden stewardship of the environment is simply a way to continue to make gas guzzlers thanks to E85 an extremely inefficient fuel. The CAFE standards call for all car companies to achieve an average MPG for all vehicles. I believe the most recent number is 27 MPG. Well if you make the biggest money off of 10 miles per gallon SUV's you would hate to say good bye to them wouldn't you?
The CAFE standards has a loophole, that being that an E85 vehicle operating on E85 miles per gallon are ONLY figured against the actual amount of gasoline in the blend (15%) if you divide 100% fuel by 15% gasoline you get the multiplier to the mpg (666) therefore a gas guzzling 10 MPG SUV is given credit for 66.6 MPG. If you sell one SUV like this you can have 5 vehicles only achieving 20 MPG and this gas guzzling SUV and you average more than 27 MPG overall while not one of their vehicles really met the standard.
GM is not the only one taking advantage of this free ride Ford and Chrysler are too. The big three are heading down the toilet and this is just their hands clinging to the rim

@ Henry Gibson:

Hey, what are YOU doing that is so much better? Or are you just negative all the time?

Has everyone collectively turned their brains off? E85 is a red herring designed to enrich GM, Big Oil, Big Ag, and the congressional representatives of farm states. It is the product of some very evil and cyncical leadership. From farm to pump it takes more than a gallon of fossil fuel to create a gallon of E85. Yippee say the oil companies! Tax subsidies..Yippee says Big Ag and the politicians they pay. People who think they are being green buy GM cars, Yippee says GM. Groan I'm hungry, says the third world as they starve to death because the shipments of US corn have stopped and world food prices have sky rocketted. People please wake up. Scream from your roof top. Give us back the electric car! Give us fuel efficient vehicles like they have in Europe and Asia! Give us back the electric street cars that the oil companies bought and destroyed in the 1930's. Stop lying to us about your inability to make an electric car...you made one 10 years ago that people who drove them loved. Sheesh!

creativforce and Henry Gibson: you're both talking about corn ethanol, but cellulose is well on its way. Cellulose has the advantages of lower energy inputs, higher output per acre, and perennial growth, reducing soil erosion and water pollution. Corn is merely a short-term measure to increase availability of FFVs.

Furthermore, IIRC the fossil fuels used in fertilizers etc. are partially domestic, so although corn does nothing for GHG emissions, it does reduce petroleum imports. Given that a policy goal of the US is to *not* subsidize Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia etc., this is a worthwhile goal.

WHY do people continue to talk about corn ethanol when we are talking about cellulose ethanol? Get off it and start reading the posts. You continue to talk about something completely different. Why do you do this? Forget it...I don't really want to know.

People talk about corn ethanol because cellulosic ethanol is about as common on the market as whale oil.

So true sjc!

Cellulose biofuels may be very common in the market place in 5-10 years or less. If you make every car sold an FFV with an increased cost of only $200 per vehicle, you will have 10s of millions of them on the road. That would create a ready customer base for the biofuels. A bit of forward cost effective thinking goes a long way.

People on here would rather make snide comments than be constructive. No one has to agree with everything, but just taking pot shots instead of coming up with a better plan will not get this country where it needs to go NOW. Maybe people are just to independent and cynical to work together for the common good. This is the test that we all must pass or we are done. This is called Green Car Congress because it is suppose to be a Congress of ideas to bring about greener cars.