I am wondering how much of a price difference there is between regular car and flex fuel car. Ethanol resistant fuel system, some sensor to see if car is running on ethanol or gasoline, and recalibration of a computer. Anything else?? How much can it cost $200-$500 in mass production?? If it such a small cost why not require every gas power car to flex fuel?

I wonder if this would include the Prius.

Actually, automaker profit margins vary widely not only by company but also across vehicle categories and types. Larger vehicles and especially luxury models can have profit margins of several thousand dollars per vehicle. Smaller cars, especially those made by US manufacturers, barely earn a profit at all.

US automakers have introduced flex fuel capabilities on their larger vehicles first for several reasons. First, a few hundred dollars represents a smaller fraction of the total purchase price of a large vehicle, making it less expensive on a percentage basis. Second, profit margins are higher on large vehicles, providing more "room" to pay for this equipment. Third, consumers would rationally be more interested in fixed-cost fuel-consumption-lowering equipment in vehicles that go through more fuel per year than those that go through less. Fourth, I think that the regulatory benefits to making a given number of large vehicles flex-fuel is greater than the regulatory benefits of making the same number of smaller vehicles flex-fuel, based on the CAFE rules.

For all the problems which come with giving CAFE bonuses to carmakers who produce flex-fuel vehicles which will likely never see a drop of E85, the fact remains that introducing ethanol fuel is a classic chicken-and-egg problem. Development of large-scale, cost-effective and environmentally sound ethanol production methods requires the prospect of high ethanol demand; investors will build ethanol plants if they know there is a market for the product. Development of ethanol-burning and ethanol optimized cars, which would drive large-scale demand, requires the assurance that large quantities of reasonably priced ethanol will be available. No carmaker would build a car that could not be easily refueled.

Bootstrapping your way out of this conundrum requires a host of small measures which attack both sides of the problem. Ethanol and FFV technology can be directly supported by government research grants. Ethanol demand can be stimulated by mandating or subsidizing widespread E10 use, which can be consumed in unmodified modern gasoline engines. Creating a large installed base of ethanol burning cars can be done by creating dual-fuel cars and then providing incentives to get a lot of them on the road.

We are nearing the end of this first stage: We know how to run and optimize engines for ethanol (not that current FFVs are actually optimized at present). We have a fairly large market for the production, consumption and transport of ethanol largely due to E10 demand. And we have a fairly large installed base of FFVs, thanks largely to Ford and GM's response to the CAFE incentives. Probably the last piece of the puzzle is truly optimized ethanol production -- cellulostic ethanol -- as opposed to the only marginally useful corn-based methods currently used.

The second stage of market adoption is beginning: Large numbers of FFVs combined with large volumes of available ethanol are making it sensible to install a larger number of E85 pumps in several geographic regions. Once a substantial number of motorists find themselves consistantly able to fill up on E85, they will start to demand that their FFVs -- currently optimized for regular-octane gas -- be optimized for higher-octane E85. By enabling higher compression ratios and better cooling, that would help close the efficiency gap that currently exists between running a typical FFV on gas versus E85.

These first two stages are not self-stable -- absent a sudden and massive oil shock, the market will not support those groundwork-laying moves. Only a concerted government investment involving mandates and subsidies can get the ball rolling through these admittedly unprofitable steps. The payoff is when we reach the third stage of market acceptance. That is, well optimized and relatively fuel-efficient E85 vehicles will be widespread, the price of ethanol will be relatively low because high ethanol production and delivery volumes have created economies of scale, and the cost-per-mile of operating a vehicle will be equal or lower than the cost we face today, with the added benefit of a reduced GHG footprint and reduced reliance on foreign energy.

Pretty much the only piece of this picture that is technically infeasable at the present is cellulostic ethanol, or some other breakthrough method which reduces the price and cost of that fuel. Currently, ethanol is trading for well over $2.00, as the rapid phase-out of MTBE is creating an unexpectedly sudden surge in demand for ethanol as a replacement oxygenate. However, as more ethanol plants open and supply increases, my guess is that ethanol produced using current technologies will come back to historic price levels of $1.50 to $1.70 a gallon. If oil remains above $50 a barrel for the long term, then ethanol produced with present technology is competative with gasoline, on a cost-per-mile basis, assuming engines get optimized for it. Breakthrough technologies would make ethanol a positive winner, hands down.

At this point, an ethanol future is price-equivalent with a gasoline future, probably a bit sounder from an environmental point of view, attractive from a national-security and economy point of view, and retains the possibility that a foreseeable technological leap will result in major gains on many of these grounds.

Sure, ethanol is in the interests of farm-state politicians and business interests. But any replacement fuel will mean big business to whomever can supply it, so interests will always arise. What is important in this context is the fact that ethanol is in fact a viable way to run a country (see Brazil), and that we are closing in on global economic conditions that would likely make it the most cost-effective way to run our country.

We could cut ethanol subsidies and CAFE bonuses to FFV makers, but that would simply send us right back down to the status quo of total gasoline dependence. That would lead to a more wrenching move away from petroleum when the crisis finally comes, rather than a smooth transition away from gasoline, which is something government action in the marketplace can help us achieve.

Hybrids, by contrast, cannot be the long term answer. If a country has 50 years of fuel remaining at current consumption rates, suddenly doubling fuel economy only puts off the day their fuel is exhaused for 50 years. That day will still eventually come. Switching to another fuel -- hopefully a renewable one -- changes the game for the indefinite future.

Toyota is now playing catch-up to GM!!! I was wondering if I would see it mentioned. I didnt, so I mentioned it myself, even if I dont agreee with the whole ethanol situation.

A. Ethanol is being pushed alongside biodiesel (instead of a biodiesel-only approach) for several reasons: 1. Both fuels are made from different feedstocks, so that once we've used up all our surplus soybeans, we can still find something useful to do with all our surplus corn. 2. Ethanol seems ripe for a breakout technological development (cellulostic production) which can significantly reduce energy and money costs in the long term, even over biodiesel. 3. Ethanol is compatible with our gasoline-fired engine technologies, which are popular for market reasons as well as regulatory ones (i.e. at present you cannot buy a new diesel passenger car in California, New York, Massachusetts or Vermont).

B. I don't have good numbers for ethanol-optimized cars, despite trying to find Brazilian statistics. Experimental work on ethanol optimization is promising: http://www.ifp.fr/IFP/fr/IFP02OGS.nsf/0/A035F6E8F33537C880256F94003B7A09/$file/jeuland1_vol59n6.pdf?openelement. See also http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/12/saab_flexfuel_b.html.

C. Frankly, I don't know how much government can or should mandate. A big part of the trick is to make a transition to alternative and renewable fuels cost-effective and smooth for the consumer. That reasoning stands behind government decisions to encourage and subsidize, rather than command and mandate; whenever the government makes and abrupt decision (such as the fairly abrupt phase out of MTBE which we are currently living through), the market is likely to feel some painful jolts.
Ford and GM (and now Toyota) will begin to tune their engines for ethanol once enough ethanol pumps are installed in major regions in the country and consumers realize they could save on their fuel bills by demanding it. Consumers won't demand ethanol optimization until they know they can reliably fill up on ethanol. When Ford realizes that it can sell more pickups by optimizing their F150's for ethanol and then advertising that advantage, the will. GM will then likely follow up with a re-tuned version of their Silverado.
How do we get to the point where enough ethanol pumps are around to convince consumers to take the plunge and demand ethanol optimization? Have a powerful and interested actor (such as the government) subsidize the deployment of a large fleet of gasoline-optimized dual-fuel vehicles (so that consumers are willing to buy them even when the expect to burn mainly gas), and subsidize the time-consuming deployment of a large number of ethanol pumps, to the point where the unoptimized ethanol performance is still cheaper (to the consumer) than the gasoline performance. As ethanol production becomes more efficient and vehicle optimization catches on, gradually reduce the subsidies, so the cost-per-mile remains competitve with gasoline without becoming unduly cheap, until the transition is complete.

"...That might not seem like a lot, but keep in mind that the automakers fight for every fraction of a penny per vehicle, and $250 is a LOT"
Thanks for actual data but:
My point was, at $250 per vehicle it would cost the same as requiring airbags, as requiring catalictic converter, as requirng any other safety measure that was introduced into every car on the road in recent years. Just because some part cost $250 it does not neccesarly mean it would be taken from company profit.
I doubt that anyone would care if they had to pay extra $250 unless someone explicitly pointed it to them.

Crooked oil companies and the government are pushing Ethanol as an alternative fuel, knowing full well that there is limited by the supply of corn. Methanol is produced from coal and is a lot cheaper. There is a 300 year supply of coal in the US. Methanol can be produced for as little as 50 cents per gallon and we won't have to send our kids overseas to die for it.

Alternative and cheaper fuels have exsisted for literally 100 years if the well being of the environment was an important issue they would have been in use a long time ago.

An ironical fact is that the inventer of diesel engine mr Rudolf Diesel created it to run on peanut oil to run more efficiently than from fossil fuel diesel.

The technology exsists to run vehicles on less than 1 litre per hundred kilometers of fossil fuels(as from 1999) as appossed to the average 6 litres per hundred kilometers.

whats going on - Big Business

whoe's suffereing the environment and therefore our future generations and ofcourse us the user finacially but also in health as it is a fact that products made from crude oil ie fossil fuels and a multitude of other products largely increase cancers, birth defects and weakened immune systems.

why should we and the earth suffer at the cost of the inconsiderate crude oil industries, when perfectly viable alternative exsist and have done for so long!

I recently saw this video given by a leading proponent of ethanol as a solution.
link

Its about 1 hour long, and if you have doubts or are interested to know more about things like energy balance, cost to manufacturers, emmission issues, etc. He deals with all of that. I highly recommend it.

does anyone know what the maximium amount\purity ethanol you can run in a toyota 3vze engin. in regardes to home production.
is their a kit for the corrisive fuel sytem parts and chips to buy for better effciantcy

sorry, post by Roger Pham