For consumers who support E85 (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline) and drive a flex-fuel vehicle, E85 became a little easier to find today when the 2,000th E85 pump opened today in Davie, Florida a suburb of Miami. The station is owned by U-Gas, which has brought most of the E85 infrastructure to Florida. As part of the celebration, the station offered E85 for $1.00 a gallon at not only this station, but all stations where U-Gas sells E85.
Willie Urbieta, President of U-Gas is a huge supporter of ethanol and said during the press conference, “For me personally, it feels really good when I fuel up to know that I’m not sending money to countries that are not that friendly to us.”
By Nick Chambers •
November 26, 2008
CNN is reporting that the ethanol industry’s top lobbying groups have sent a letter to the executives at Ford, GM and Chrysler, urging the Big Three to adopt widespread support for higher ethanol blends in gasoline and mandatory E85 flex fuel capability on all new cars.
The three ethanol groups — Growth Energy, the Renewable Fuels Association and the American Council on Renewable Energy — painted a bit of a doomsday picture for the Big Three in their letter, suggesting that the only way for the auto industry to avoid “dire consequences” is to “bring resourceful, innovative and practical solutions” to the table.
Editors Note: This guest post was contributed by Charley Territo, spokesperson for the Alliance of Auto Manufacturers, in an effort encourage better dialogue between the auto industry and the environmental movement. Charley also contributed a guest post on Grist on May 20. I asked him to weigh in on a question I’ve had for a long time: How can automakers like GM complain that consumers only want to buy big cars when they spend hundreds of thousands advertising brands like Hummer? Here is his response. Feel free to weigh in with your own comments below.
For years it’s been assumed that, using their superior marketing skills, automakers have the ability to trick consumers into buying SUVs and pickup trucks…when, in reality, the consumers really only
wanted to buy compact cars. While that’s probably quite flattering to the marketing departments, it doesn’t have the important benefit of actually being correct.
Current events are now allowing people to see more clearly the greater force at work driving consumer demand: Gas prices.
