never mind that I get 20% less mpg with an ethanol blend because no matter how much you wish it were so, ethanol does not have the energy density of octane.
A blend of 90% gasoline and 10% ethanol has more than 95% as much energy as pure gasoline, and yet it seems that the reduction in fuel economy is far more severe than caloric content would suggest. I can imagine a variety of factors which could cause a vehicle to travel less far on 1oz of ethanol mixed with 9oz of gasoline than it would travel on 9oz of gasoline mixed with nothing, but I don't know to what extent such factors apply. It would be interesting to know what such research would show, though given its extreme political-incorrectness I'm not sure who would conduct it. Certainly it shouldn't be difficult to have some test subjects in a double-blind test receive all their gasoline for some period of time from the entity running the test, and measure how the fuel economy when using pure gasoline compares to the fuel economy when using ethanol blend.
Yep. Me too. I dropped from 20 mpg to 17. Thanks Big government. I ‘d go protest, but I have to go to work!