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When you think about how much tax there is on a single gallon of gasoline, and how auto manufactures have increased the miles per gallon a cage will get, I would not put it pass the Feds to push ethanol down our throats in order to increase cash flow into there pockets. Based on simple facts of BTU output, you will use 10% more E10 to get to the same place as before. So with every tankful (20 gallons) will give the Feds another $1.20 in gas taxes without them even asking for it.

Anyone who thinks your mileage is better using E10 over pure gasoline with methyl tertiary butyl ether, please answer this question for me. If E10 gets better mileage than pure gasoline,,, then an E85 vehicle should be getting 5 times better gas mileage than an E10 setup, right? So why does an optimized E85 vehicle get such poor mileage?
 
Here we go again, MPG will be affected more by how you ride than by ethanol.
If you are stuck in traffic, going from red light to red light, or if your riding the super slab.
The only way to get an accurate MPG is to ride the same route with ethanol fuel then non-ethanol fuel (if you can find it).
3 to 4 MPG or engine performance doesn't matter that much.
Just get on and ride, have fun and don't sweat the small stuff.
That's just MHO as I set in my snow covered house and wont ride cause of the salt on the roads.

I get your point SkyWarrior, but I commute the same route 100 miles/day, cruise control on the highway, 5-6 days a week for work. If I am just out for a joy ride, I don't really care about MPG as much as having a nice ride. It is not just "gasoline" (or more correctly "fuel", since it is not pure gasoline), it is pretty much a necessity that we all use and pay for in some way. My issue comes with the incremental increase in may other items, just to add ethanol in fuel. I don't have a problem paying for energy. But added costs to everthing delivered, manufactured and grown (food stuff) is very real and significant.
When I fueled up this morning, it cost me $15.40 for 4.4 gallons @3.499/gallon for 156 miles= 35.45 mpg (I cruise at 73 mph, so I could save a litte if I slowed down a bit). If I use 500 miles/week @$3.499/gallon= $49.22 x 52 weeks= $2559/year in fuel.

Pure gasoline (no ethanol, when I could get it locally 2 years ago, not anymore): 41.9 mpg = $2171/year (assuming 3.499 a gallon and 500 miles/week). That is a ~15% difference for 10% Ethanol. So if it is linear I expect (holding price stable) about a 22% difference for E85.

Now, what happens when fuel is north of $5/gallon (Exxon officer mentioned this is likely in 18 months). So, right now, with all the incremental changes we are approaching a 25% difference, just in fuel. What will HD charge do deliver a bike to their stores when fuel is $5/gallon @ E85 energy density?

I expect many more dealers to close as the disposable income is reduced as people choose necessity over luxury. Although, I am a strong proponent of the fuel efficiency/excitement trade off of Harley Davidson motorcycles and do my daily best to convince others to make their commutes on a HD. To me, what could be better than an entire highway with nothing but HD's!

I think sometimes the percentages get confusing when thinking of the volumes of fuel needed. You really tend to care about what is in your immediate world: what it takes to fill up your HD tank sitting in front of you. But you have to remember that it will not only cost more to fill your tank, you will get less miles traveled out of that tank AND your corndog at the local fair will cost you much more as well. (I like corndogs!:D)
This may give a little insight into the percentages/mpg and amount of fuel used by military. The miltary is used because it is easier to measure specifically, compared to the "public". And, the military is always looking for better, faster, cheaper...so fuel sources would be on the table. I say we bring back HD's for miltary use..

Again, it is physics and energy density. Ethanol has less energy per volume than straight gasoline, so it is impossible (all else equal) to get more mpg out of the same volume.


According to the Congressional Budget Office, producing enough corn ethanol to match the energy contained in a single gallon of conventional gasoline costs taxpayers $1.78. Even with those subsidies, which total about $7 billion per year, corn ethanol still only provides about 3 percent of America’s oil needs. And by mandating the consumption of ethanol, Congress has created an industry that now gobbles up about one-third of America’s corn crop.

Those numbers are germane to Friedman’s claim that biofuels will be an essential part of the DOD’s new “green” future. The Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist lauded the Navy for its experiments with jet fuel derived from camellina, a plant in the mustard family. In April, the Navy flew an F-18 using a mixture of conventional jet fuel and camellina-based fuel. The cost of that biofuel: about $67.50 per gallon.

The fundamental problem with using plants to make liquid motor fuel isn’t want-to, it’s physics. We pump oil out of the earth because of its high energy density. That is it contains lots of stored chemical energy by both weight and volume. Camellina, like switchgrass, and nearly every other plant-based feedstock now being considered for “advanced” biofuel production, has low energy density. Thus, in order to produce a significant quantity of liquid fuels that have high energy density – such as jet fuel, diesel, or gasoline -- from those plants, you need Bunyanesque quantities of the stuff.

The US produces about 3.2 billion bushels of soybeans per year and each bushel can be processed into about 1.5 gallons of biodiesel. Thus, if it made sense to do so, we could convert all US soybean production into diesel with total output of about 4.8 billion gallons.

How much fuel is that? By Pentagon standards, it’s not much. In 2008, the DOD consumed 132.5 million barrels of oil products, or about 5.5 billion gallons. Put another way, even the US decided to convert all of its soybean production into motor fuel, doing so would only provide about 87 percent of the Pentagon’s total oil needs.

Tim Searchinger, a research scholar at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School who has written extensively about the problems with biofuels, says that biofuels don’t make much sense because it “takes a huge amount of land to produce a modest amount of energy.” The key issue, says Searchinger, is scale. He points out that even if we used “every piece of wood on the planet, every piece of grass eaten by livestock, and all food crops, that much biomass could only provide about 30 percent of the world’s total energy needs.” Some crops can provide a relatively good feedstock for biofuels. For instance, Brazil utilizes sugar cane to produce ethanol. (Brazil is the world’s second-largest ethanol producer, behind the US.) But even if the US military commandeered all of Brazil’s ethanol production -- which totaled 6.5 billion gallons in 2008 – that volume of energy still wouldn’t be enough to keep the Pentagon’s planes, trucks, and tanks moving. Recall that ethanol contains just two-thirds of the heat energy of gasoline. Therefore Brazil’s 6.5 billion gallons of ethanol is equal to 4.3 billion gallons of refined oil product, far less than the US military’s consumption of 5.5 billion gallons per year.

Going beyond Brazil, biomass-based fuels may be worthwhile on tropical islands, like Hawaii, that have lots of rainfall and plenty of arable land. Furthermore, fuels derived from photosynthetic algae might – repeat, might – someday become commercial.
 
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Here we go again, MPG will be affected more by how you ride than by ethanol.
If you are stuck in traffic, going from red light to red light, or if your riding the super slab.
The only way to get an accurate MPG is to ride the same route with ethanol fuel then non-ethanol fuel (if you can find it).
3 to 4 MPG or engine performance doesn't matter that much.
Just get on and ride, have fun and don't sweat the small stuff.
That's just MHO as I set in my snow covered house and wont ride cause of the salt on the roads.

ABSOLUTELY! The only way to get an accurate test is to ride the same route in the same traffic! I don't calculate the numbers because I certainly did not buy a Harley to save gas! If that was my purpose for getting a bike I would have got a 500cc metric!

But as far as traffic conditions go when I ride my 2010 FXDC to work 60 miles one way on the highway I can get just about 200 miles out of the tank. When I'm in traffic and cruising around town snapping the throttle I'm pulling into the station at 150 miles.

I just ride and enjoy!!!!!
 
The bottom line on gas mileage relates to the excessive use of right wrist. Mileage will worsen with use of exhaust and or hi flow air filter do to the additional power. Yes, you will achieve better mileage on highway versus stop and go traffic. So just fill up when empty and keep riding.......ENJOY
 
Gas mileage on a M/C is so hard to figure but anyone who has ever used E85 knows that for a fact you will get less mileage,my 2010 silverado gets about 19.5 mpg on E10 (thats all we get here in TX epa mandated) I was at gas station had E85 on sale 80 cents a gallon cheaper than E10 filled her up that little computer on the dash then said 15.8 mpg for that tank full.doesnt take a statitician to see there is no savings plus in the owners manual it states not to fill up 3 tanks of E85 in a row without going back to regular for a tankfull ...My 07 egc gas mileage went down when I put the stage 11 103 in her by man is it fun!!!
 
When you think about how much tax there is on a single gallon of gasoline, and how auto manufactures have increased the miles per gallon a cage will get, I would not put it pass the Feds to push ethanol down our throats in order to increase cash flow into there pockets. Based on simple facts of BTU output, you will use 10% more E10 to get to the same place as before. So with every tankful (20 gallons) will give the Feds another $1.20 in gas taxes without them even asking for it.

Anyone who thinks your mileage is better using E10 over pure gasoline with methyl tertiary butyl ether, please answer this question for me. If E10 gets better mileage than pure gasoline,,, then an E85 vehicle should be getting 5 times better gas mileage than an E10 setup, right? So why does an optimized E85 vehicle get such poor mileage?

And have such poor throttle response, I hate driving these cars but I have to as part of my job
 
I didn't know you were allowed in a cage Jack.

Got to test drive all my work before and after repairs, feels kind of strange I keep looking for the handle bars:newsmile100:
 
No combustion engine is 100% efficient. I understand that this really limits the effect of ethanol. However, I do not condone the use of food sources for fuel additives.
 
I've actually had a few conversations with friends on this issue lately. I have a couple of buddies who swear ethanol is the worst thing you could ever put in your bike. Although I'm certainly not saying that ethanol is good I don't necessarily think it's bad either. From what I can tell my bike runs just fine on Ethanol. When I need gas I just stop at the closest station and fill up with premium. I don't even pay attention whether or not it's ethanol. Maybe the performance isn't quite as good but I don't notice it. As long as I'm rolling down the road I'm happy.

That being said are my buddies right? Is ethanol potentially harmful for the engine?
 
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