85 minutes of free E85 fuel tomorrow morning in Madison, Wisconsin
Tomorrow (Friday the 26th) morning, bewteen 7 a.m. and 8:25 a.m., one gas station in Madison, Wisconsin (actually in a Madison suburb) will be giving away E85. First-come, first served. The exact location is mentioned in the GM press release after the jump.
Why a press release from GM on this giveaway? Because it's GM that's footing the bill as part of the "Fuel for Thought" tour. The free (to the driver) fuel is due in part to a Wisconsin law that says that the price of fuel can change just one time every 24 hours. While the usual M.O. for these ethanol publicity stunts is to lower the price to 85 cents or so for a few hours, the law prevents that in this case (and you know the stations don't want to sell it that cheaply for an entire day) . Therefore, GM decided to go the free gas route this time.
As for that name, "Fuel for Thought," I'm sure many of our readers have their own thoughts on ethanol, no? Still, if you're in Madison tomorrow morning with a flex-fuel car, might as well fill up for free.
[Source: GM via Bob from ALAMN]
GM Offers E85 Ethanol for Free – for 85 Minutes
FlexFuel Vehicle Promotion Targets Ethanol Infrastructure Growth
COTTAGE GROVE, Wis. – The rising price of gasoline is hard to avoid, but owners of flex-fuel vehicles capable of running on E85 ethanol can get a real morning rush this Friday – a free fill up with the alternative fuel.
On Oct. 26 from 7 a.m. to 8:25 a.m. – for 85 minutes only – the Cenex Ampride station at 203 W Cottage Grove, in the Madison suburb, will offer the free fill-ups on a first-come, first-served basis.
And General Motors is paying the bill.
GM wants to call attention to the fact that there are 4,975 owners of GM E85-capable vehicles in the Madison area. If all of them refueled solely with the blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, an estimated 2.9 million gallons of gasoline could be saved annually.
And millions of additional gallons of gas could be saved if all owners of flex-fuel vehicles in the area regularly used mostly renewable E85.
"Typically, we offer E85 for 85 cents a gallon for a couple of hours," said Mary Beth Stanek, GM director of Environment, Energy and Safety Policy. "But in Wisconsin, the price of fuel can change only once in 24 hours. So we decided that instead of changing the price, we would just pay for the fuel."
Promoting greater use of ethanol as an alternative to gasoline and building the nation's infrastructure to make E85 more readily available to drivers of flex-fuel vehicles is the goal of GM's E85 Fall Kick Off of the Fuel for Thought Tour.
GM is the automotive industry leader in FlexFuel vehicles that run on E85 ethanol with more than 2.5 million vehicles on the road today and annual production of 400,000 E85-capable vehicles that is expected to double by 2010. More than 150,000 FlexFuel vehicles were assembled at GM's Janesville Assembly Plant in the 2007 model year and about 25,000 so far in the 2008 model year that began Oct. 1.
For the 2008 model year, GM offers 11 FlexFuel models, identifiable by FlexFuel exterior badging and yellow gasoline caps. The E85 Fall Kickoff comes to Wisconsin after its first stop earlier this month in Pittsburgh. Events include an employee recognition event at the Janesville plant and a free T-shirt promotion at Saturday's Indiana-Wisconsin football game. On Thursday, the University of Wisconsin-Madison will host a seminar featuring Stanek of GM; Doug Durante, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Clean Fuels Development Coalition, and Tim Gerlach, vice president of Clean Fuel and Vehicle Technologies for the American Lung Association of the Upper Midwest.
Wisconsin currently has 88 of the E85 ethanol fuel pumps of the more than 1,200 ethanol fueling stations in the country, according to the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition, www.e85refueling.com
Gov. Jim Doyle has set a 25-percent target that all liquid fuels come from renewable sources by 2025. Ethanol can be made from domestic resources that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the nation's dependence on imported petroleum.
The State of Wisconsin is a strong proponent of biofuels and is a founding member of the Governor's Ethanol Coalition. http://www.ethanol-gec.org/index.htm Currently five ethanol plants have invested more than $280 million and several more are expected to be built in the next few years,
General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM), the world's largest automaker, has been the annual global industry sales leader for 76 years. Founded in 1908, GM today employs about 280,000 people around the world. With global headquarters in Detroit, GM manufactures its cars and trucks in 33 countries. In 2006, nearly 9.1 million GM cars and trucks were sold globally under the following brands: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, GM Daewoo, Holden, HUMMER, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn and Vauxhall. GM's OnStar subsidiary is the industry leader in vehicle safety, security and information services. More information on GM can be found at www.gm.com.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Karkus 3:22PM (10/25/2007)
Another publicity stunt for the E85 CAFE loophole.
I wonder if all the cars waiting in a big line tomorrow will idle away more CO2 than the E85 saves ? Of course that calculation would be tough since there is a debate about how much (if any) CO2 is really saved by corn ethanol.
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Bob Moffitt (Bob from ALAMN) 3:46PM (10/25/2007)
No debate here, Karkus. The American Lung Association of Minnesota strongly supports E85 as a "Clean Air Choice" for owners of flex fuel vehicles.
People may try E85 because of these publicity stunts, but they stay because they like using an largely homegrown alternative fuel that is cleaner burning than gasoline. We have proved this in neighboring Minnesota. Offer drivers a better choice at a fair price, and they WILL choose cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels.
Right now, GM is making more FFVs for the US market than any other automaker. Supporting the growth of E85 with events like this shows they are serious about moving away from the gasoline-only mindset.
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Karkus 5:57PM (10/25/2007)
Yes, it looks like CO and NOx are slightly lower for E85 than gasoline (altough HCs are higher) so I can see why the ALA supports it...nothing wrong there.
As for GM selling more FFV than anyone else...is it because they care about air quality or foreign oil? NOT!
They do it because they get CAFE credits for it, regardless of whether that vehicle ever uses E85, and regardless of the fact that CO2 emissions for corn ethanol are marginally better at best (and that's not even considering the huge amounts of water used and the ecological damage from all that fertilizer).
They do it so they can sell more low MPG SUVs and trucks. This is no secret. Therefore, they should not be commended for it. Not only that, but they keep making big polluting diesel trucks. Those make any small gains in air quality from their E85 vehicles go up in a big black cloud of diesel smoke. Yes, diesels are much cleaner now than they used to be, but the particulate pollution, which is REALLY bad for the lungs, still isn't as anywhere as clean as an average gasoline vehicle.
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A D 7:11PM (10/25/2007)
Karkus you are full of smog.
Any vehicle GM sells meets the EPA standards.
That they chose to sell E85 compliant vehicles does make sense. We Americans can "brew" E85. The money stays here.
Now of course they could have a government that LIES about currency values to screw the American worker but let's just let Toyota keep that one for themselves.
Just exactly how have any of the imports done to improve and clean up their vehicles? Catalytic converters? American, no lead fuel? American. E85 American. Lies and deceit to sell Tundras, Japan.
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Snowdog 11:56AM (10/26/2007)
Ethanol is basically a complete waste of the huge subsidies thrown at it. Take away the subsidies and it would disappear.
While it is difficult to gauge exactly. The amount of energy coming out of ethanol production, is not that much more than goes in. Actual scientific studies even indicate that ethanol takes more energy to produce than it contains, in which case it is the most massive boondoggle in my lifetime. Even in the best case there is not much net energy being created. We would need to remove the subsidies to get the real answer.
http://slate.com/id/2122961/
Then factor in how much poorer gas mileage is with ethanol. For example the E85 dodge avenger:
Fuel Type Gasoline E85
MPG (city) 19 13
MPG (highway) 27 20
Ethanol is little more than a corn lobby scam IMO.
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