Cars On Alcohol, Part 16: Ethanol Ousts Methanol
By Green Car Journal Editors
The shift to ethanol was clear as the years passed in the 1990s. By 1997, the Department of Energy was recognizing ethanol's growing role while methanol was falling out of favor. Ford also took the dramatic step of announcing it would build 250,000 ethanol flexible-fuel vehicles and encourage expanding the ethanol refueling infrastructure. These reports, reprinted just as they ran in Green Car Journal's early issues, document the shift toward ethanol that paved the way for the vehicles that run on this renewable fuel today.
ETHANOL'S ROLE PROJECTED TO SHIFT DRAMATICALLY
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED MARCH 1997 Although there are demonstration fleets of ethanol vehicles being fielded, ethanol's primary use in transportation today is as a blending agent in gasoline. That will change. The Energy Information Administration projects that ethanol's role will shift, with it being used predominately as an alternative fuel by 2015. According to EIA's Annual Energy Outlook 1997, direct ethanol blending will decline by 60,000 barrels per day over the 20-year period while blending with ETBE will grow by 40,000 bpd. Ethanol consumption is projected to increase overall from its 1995 level of 70,000 bpd to 130,000 bpd by 2015.
FORD TO MARKET 250,000 ETHANOL FFVs
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JUNE 1997 How do you create an alternative fuel-vehicle market? Many have tried in recent years, with varying degrees of success. Apparently, Ford Motor Co.'s high-profile approach will be to build and sell an enormous number of alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) in the hope that an infrastructure will grow to support them.
Ford plans to produce 250,000 flexible-fuel vehicles capable of running on gasoline or E85 ethanol, or any combination of the two fuels, by 2002. The automaker has outlined a phased four-year program that will bring an increasing number of FFVs to market annually to match the growth of ethanol refueling stations across the United States. In third-quarter 1998, Ford will begin equipping 3.0-liter Ranger pickups with flexible-fuel systems to augment its existing flexible-fuel Taurus sedan. Ford's Windstar minivan, along with other as-yet unnamed vehicles, will be added in subsequent years.
Ethanol, primarily derived from corn and other grains, is used as a high-octane gasoline blending compound by most major oil companies in the United States. More than 10.5 billion gallons of ethanol-blended gasoline were used in the U.S. market last year alone.
That's not to say that ethanol is well understood. Indeed, Green Car editors point out that the motoring public's awareness of ethanol's existence as a fuel, its role in gasoline blending, and its competition with methanol-based MTBE as the gasoline-blending agent of choice is certainly minimal. Practically speaking, drivers fill their fuel tanks with gasoline?oxygenated, reformulated, or otherwise?and get back on the road without any thought devoted to what specifically went in their tanks, other than perhaps the octane rating.
While a number of fleets do have experience with ethanol, the concept of fueling up with E85?a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline?is certainly an unfamiliar one to the nation's drivers. The reason is simple: Fewer than 60 ethanol fueling stations exist throughout the United States.
That's seemingly not a problem in Ford's estimation. "Our FFV technology is invisible to customers who choose to use only gasoline," says Ross Roberts, vice president and general manager, Ford Division. Unfortunately, some view this "transparency" not as advantageous, but inherently problematic.
Critics in the environmental camp question the automaker's motivations, pointing out that a paucity of ethanol fueling stations means buyers will likely refuel with gasoline rather than suffer the inconvenience of attempting to find ethanol. Hence, no emissions or efficiency benefits will be realized by these FFVs, regardless of their numbers on the road. These critics additionally claim that Ford and other automakers who mass market FFVs will get credit for the potential fuel efficiency benefits of these vehicles even if they never operate on alternative fuels, an important distinction that will aid them in achieving corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) requirements.
CAFE is a particularly difficult issue for U.S. automakers this year since overall fleet fuel economy numbers have suffered significantly with the popularity of sport utility vehicles, which typically net poorer fuel economy than the average.
Roberts admits that "it does not make sense to dump a large number of FFVs on the market now when there are so few ethanol stations." But Ford's view is that by announcing its product strategy early and phasing in FFV introductions, it can spur states, the ethanol industry, and others to develop and expand the nation's ethanol fueling infrastructure to service the growing number of ethanol-fueled FFVs coming to the highway.
How will this issue shake out? Green Car editors say that one's a tough call. A lot depends on how much support Ford's move generates within the ethanol industry, as well as the response by state and federal agencies, service station operators, and others.
Establishing a fueling network for alternative fuel vehicles is a tremendously difficult challenge, even with state and federal support. A good example is California's considerable support for methanol-fueled vehicles over a period of years in the early part of this decade. While the state did encourage oil companies to operate more than 50 stations with methanol fueling capability, and automakers committed to the sale of methanol flexible-fuel vehicles in this market, this did not result in measurable market success for FFVs.
Still, establishing an AFV refueling network and encouraging massive use of alternative fuel vehicles is not an impossible challenge, as has been proved by Brazil for decades with its huge ethanol vehicle fleet.
Ford has quite a substantial history with flexible-fuel vehicles, having debuted its Taurus FFV model for fleets in 1992. Most have been configured to run on methanol and gasoline, although recent years have also found ethanol/gasoline variants marketed in ethanol-friendly corn belt states. The automaker sold 5,272 Taurus FFVs (combined methanol/ethanol) last year and already has sold nearly as many in 1997. Since enactment of the Clean Air Act of 1990, Ford has sold 12,117 FFVs, more than half of the total (23,232) sold by the entire industry.
Green Car test drivers have over 25,000 miles of experience behind the wheel of methanol-fueled FFVs, considerably less in ethanol-fueled vehicles. Experience has shown these vehicles to perform every bit as well as their gasoline-only counterparts on any combination of these fuels. However, access to convenient refueling truly was an issue then as it is now.
Ford is likely to be clever in its FFV marketing. Its current approach is to sell Taurus FFVs at $345 less than the standard gasoline Taurus through special value package pricing, even though additional manufacturing cost is incurred with the FFV's upgraded fuel pump, fuel rails, injectors, fuel lines, filler pipe, and the unique electronic engine control module that calibrates engine response to different fuel mixtures of gasoline and ethanol.
"We have kept alive the technical development and manufacture of alternative fuel vehicles for more than a decade," Roberts sums up as he underscores Ford's commitment to this field. "Now we're bringing FFVs into the mainstream market because they make sense for America."
Soon enough, Green Car editors note, we'll see if the infrastructure-leading rationale is valid in the quest to establish an alternative fuel vehicle mass market.
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