Ford Makes History As Demonstration Fleet Of Ethanol-Fueled Hybrids Hits The Road
Ford Unveils First E85 Hybrid:
The ethanol industry got a major boost on Wednesday, when the Ford Motor Company unveiled the world’s first E85 hybrid vehicle, the E-85 Escape, on Capitol Hill. The hybrid gets 41 miles per gallon and emits 25-percent less carbon than a gas-powered Escape. But Ford spokesman Sue Cischke says Ford has no plans yet to mass produce the new vehicle, and warned that E85 vehicles won’t succeed unless the oil industry does more, “Right now, we need the big oil companies to get behind this, and put E85 pumps under their canopies.”
Cischke complains less than 1-percent of the nation’s 170-thousand retail gas stations sell E85, “Ethanol can make an impact now, but there’s a problem: can drivers find it? And while Congress debates energy policy and the role renewable fuels can play, we all need to do something out here, on the streets.” Cischke says it will take incentives from Congress and resolution of a pump certification hold-up, involving Underwriters Laboratories, to boost E85 availability.
Meantime, Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda, and others have put 6 million flex fuel vehicles on the road, but Cischke says many don’t even use ethanol, “If the more than six million flexible fuel vehicles now on America’s highways operated on E85, the nation would save 3.6 billion gallons of gasoline a year. And that would be like saving a full year of gasoline consumption for an entire state the size of Missouri.” Cischke argues ethanol “can make an impact now”, if motorists “can find it.”
Related posts:
- Ethanol Blends’ Effects On Cars istockAnalyst.com: The fruits, so far, of a $497,000 grant to...
- Sugar Succeeds In Powering Supercars ABC Online: There have been no complaints from drivers in...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
