Maximum allowed biofuel in hybrids?

[ruskiturbo]

Hi, I'm asking this because our govt has recently introduced a max quantity of 10% biofuel in all petrol and diesel pumps, and I was wondering if you guys know if it's detrimental to the engines or what/if Toyota said anything about it. For reference, it's a 1.8 hybrid, 2022 MY

[FROSTYBALLS]

E10 petrol (10% ethanol) was introduced in Great Britain in September 2021. 

Toyota gave the UK government the following advice:

https://check-vehicle-compatibility-e10-petrol.service.gov.uk/manufacturer/Toyota

So your Corolla should be OK to use petrol with 10% ethanol.

[Cyker]

The engines were designed to run on E10 so will be fine; I suspect they will be fine at least up to E20 which, given the track record, you can bet they'll slowly move over to over time...

[tfc]

They also go as high as E85 or flex fuel in India and the states , 51 to 83% ethnol,  only 2 Toyota vehicles can use E85 but must have engine oil and filter changed every 2500 miles, just doesn't seem worthwhile to do unless a gallon of is as cheap as a corn on the cob🤪

[tfc]

The biggest  problem  with vehicles from the 90's and earlier is that ethnol is corrosive and will attack metal petrol tanks rubber fuel lines and Carburettor's and classic car owners like me might have their car parked up over winter, mine didn't move from beginning of October last year till the beginning  of May as it was up for a mot and with it just sitting there the ethnol in the tank will draw moisture from the air and the fuel will separate into two, petrol and ethnol. 

It will take some time for this to happen but I now use E5 but thats no assurance as some parts of the country will have ethnol in E5 fuel.

[Cyker]

The main limitation for E85 is you need much higher flow injectors and fuel pumps because E85 has so little energy per litre compared to petrol and diesel, you need to stuff more into the cylinder to compensate.

The performance crowd love it as you can get much higher power from E85 because of the higher knock resistance and the ability to run at much richer ratios than you can with petrol and diesel, and they can pretend they're being 'greener', but in the real world the MPG is absolutely garbage because of the low energy content.

The real reason for using E-blend fuels is purely sustainability (We can grow more), which is why it narks me when they say it's for the environment - It's probably worse for the environment than petrol is. (Using land that could grow food, higher fuel consumption, prematurely killing older cars and engines etc.)

 

[ruskiturbo]

We've had E10 for years, the thing is yesterday they implemented 8% of "biofuel" (I tried looking for it but I can't find any specifics) in petrol and 6.5% in diesel. Mandatory in all pumps. I already know about ethanol, I just don't know what the hell biofuel means. I mean technically, ethanol is already a biofuel but we now have ethanol AND that 8% thing they call "biofuel". Sorry if my wording sounds confusing, but I don't get it either.

 

I live in Romania and as far as I know, it's a European Committee legislation.

[Cyker]

Biofuel generally just means fuel from plants and stuff rather than from oil.

It's why the ethanol is sometimes called bioethanol.

From what you say, I assume they're just using 8% ethanol in their E10

[AisinW]

I think almost all post 1996 car are ok with E10. Fortunately, most fuel station in UK are not truly 10%, only up to 10%.  In practice, most of E10 are around 5% ethanol and E5 2.5% ethanol and often less. Some E5 are  actually 0% ethanol too.

 

[tfc]

The fuel companies have left it a bit late to modify the fuels, Esso have fetched out a diesel fuel which contains 25% hydrotreated vegetable oil, compliant used cooking oil, just make sure the car is stationary when you light the chip pan 🤪

At the moment I think Esso are the only company suppling ethanol-free Synergy Supreme+ 99 but only in some parts of the UK and this will cease from September and will contain upto 5% ethernol

[Cyker]

They just do as they're told for the most part; I feel a lot of them don't like adding ethanol as it cuts into their profits (I don't know how they've messed that up as ethanol should be cheaper than petrol, but somehow it adds disproportionately more to the cost; Maybe it's special automotive ethanol that has to be certified??).

I am surprised they don't add more biodiesel as standard as that *is* cheaper, and unlike ethanol, biodiesel works in a diesel engine just as well with no modification (One of the benefits of the diesel cycle is that it'll run on anything that burns; The main weakness is providing enough lubrication for those 30,000psi injectors, but biodiesel actually has better lubricity than sulphur-removed diesel!)

From my previous research, biodiesel is better than diesel across the board for energy content and emissions; The only two major downsides is it cleans out the fuel system and dumps all the crud that's built up over the years right into the diesel fuel filter, blocking it up and requiring it to be changed pretty quickly after a tank of high-percentage biodiesel, but once the fuel system is clean it's fine. The other is, although all other emissions are lower, NOx is higher, potentially enough to fail an emissions test during MOT.

[TonyHSD]

So, we should have biodiesel and old school petrol real deal for those who like petrol smell from the past ⛽️😉😂 

Jokes on the sides, the ethanol fuels are burning cleaner, we all seen it on videos. I would not mind them, but just don’t like my car how it drives with E10. If they offer  e10 or any E number in fact that my engine won’t have performance decreases I am happy to burn anything that is sold at the pumps. I watched at Bicester village circuit there is a British company that produces new type of petrol that is 100% synthetic and ok to use in any cars , classics, sportrs, hybrids, everything. Maybe a trip to there and fill up the tank to try should be on my list for when I am returning to drive again. Has anyone here ever tried this fuel? 

[AisinW]

E10 was introduced by EPA in the USA in 2005. It becomes mandatory at around 2008 during economy crisis when fuel price skyrocketing. USA produced gigantic amount of corn and sugar cane and making ethanol are beneficial to the farmer there. 

Oxygenated fuel can reduce the amount of MTBE consumption that is more harmful if it is spilled to the ground.  However, european production of ethanol is not as massive as the USA and it is actually costlier to add ethanol. Therefore, most fuel distributor reduce the ethanol but still label it E10 or E5 to get TAX cut discount.  The law is only saying, contain UP TO, not EXACTLY AT. 

I never heard rattling at mild throttle in any car I ever driven in Europe with E10. Probably because it is not actually 10% but much less.

My Altima 02, Sienna 04, and Prius 06 always have mild rattling noise/pinging at mild throttle when using E10.  It runs a bit lean because those cars are made pre-2008 when E10 was mandatory.   But I did not hear the pinging on Sienna 2011 that I regularly use in our National Lab. I believed that post-2008 car are running fine with E10 but I only have 5-6 samples, probably not that accurate hypothesis.  Below is the fuel cap on Camry 2012 that I drove, it said strickly no E15 that some gas stations in the USA offered. 

We had a habit to drain the whole fuel on our law mower in fall because the E10 destroy the bowl and carburator on small engines. the aluminum is rusted because of ethanol. 

If I have time, I would also like to test the ethanol content form nearby stations.  

[Cyker]

8 hours ago, TonyHSD said:

So, we should have biodiesel and old school petrol real deal for those who like petrol smell from the past ⛽️😉😂 

Jokes on the sides, the ethanol fuels are burning cleaner, we all seen it on videos. I would not mind them, but just don’t like my car how it drives with E10. If they offer  e10 or any E number in fact that my engine won’t have performance decreases I am happy to burn anything that is sold at the pumps. I watched at Bicester village circuit there is a British company that produces new type of petrol that is 100% synthetic and ok to use in any cars , classics, sportrs, hybrids, everything. Maybe a trip to there and fill up the tank to try should be on my list for when I am returning to drive again. Has anyone here ever tried this fuel? 

Synthetic petrol isn't new, but nobody bothered with it because it was insanely expensive - Back then it was something like £5/L, but I saw £3/L bandied about more recently when they started talking about e-fuels.

V-Power petrol and diesel are allegedly composed of a percentage of synthetic fuel.

The feedstock is what determines how 'eco' it is - If they use renewable sources, they can claim it's 'green', but if they use normal oil (Which is what was previously used) then it's not.

The holy grail would be if someone could bio-engineer algae to excrete oil/petrol/diesel!  

 

[TonyHSD]

46 minutes ago, Cyker said:

Synthetic petrol isn't new, but nobody bothered with it because it was insanely expensive - Back then it was something like £5/L, but I saw £3/L bandied about more recently when they started talking about e-fuels.

V-Power petrol and diesel are allegedly composed of a percentage of synthetic fuel.

The feedstock is what determines how 'eco' it is - If they use renewable sources, they can claim it's 'green', but if they use normal oil (Which is what was previously used) then it's not.

The holy grail would be if someone could bio-engineer algae to excrete oil/petrol/diesel!  

 

I mean £1 a litre it’s fine, anything over does not make me happy. £3 bio petrol and I am switching to electric. My girlfriend literally drives for free, only lease monthly payments and not even a penny for electricity. Many people are negative and expect way too much from bev while others enjoying free drives. I am pushing her to buy the car off lease and keep it until warranty runs out, 150+ real world miles are not bad at all. Gym chargers free, supermarket chargers free, and plenty of other free ones  Home can be super cheap as well. Going holidays, free charge from the caravans 😂👌🔌  This is how we do it , what more can you ask. 

[Cyker]

Your GF is Doing EV's Right  

 

[AndrueC]

Using land to grow fuel for cars is wrong.

[Cyker]

Agree, for the most part, although if it's land that can't be used to grow anything else for some reason then fair enough.

It's like grassland for cows - Combine harvesters can't go up hills but cows can, so they can make use of hilly grasslands for grazing that would otherwise be useless for farming, or require very disruptive landscaping to make it suitable.

 

[AisinW]

Corn as the main source of ethanol in northern continent is more useful as food source for growing chicken and cows.  Just like bio diesel using Rapeseed,sunflower, soy, and corn oil is silly too. Palm oil produces 5x more yield per hectar than Rapeseed but also the main contribution in tropical forest deforestation. Chicken is probably the best protein per kW energy and food. Better than Vegans food that are often wasted because no one eat them.

In my opinion, ethanol in gasoline is just stupid. It is not better than pure gasoline for car, and not greener either if we include how much CO2 we produced in farming. The global fertiliser need petroleum stock.

Back to the topic. E5 is still the best price/performance that often contain 3% or less ethanol but much lower price than no ethanol gasoline. It is all because of tax cut, not production cost.