When I was going to UTA back in 2006 I had to go watch speakers for one of my engineering courses. One of the guys I watched was from a big company like Exxon (I forget which one). He had talked about their company making better fuel which was more efficient and how automotive companies were making more efficient vehicles. When it got on to the Q&A time the guy would answer everyone's question with lots of detail and was nice about it. Then my question was if everything is about better fuel economy then why do you guys water down the gas with ethanol which lowers the fuel economy? He looked at me with the sourest face and said because the government makes us. Then went on to answering other questions.

In performance e85 is awesome and reduces the chance of a pre detonation or knock event from happening. But in order to prepare your car for e85 it needs a bigger fuel pump and massive injectors because of how much more e85 it requires to run. Just an example of differences is my WRX has from the factory 550cc injectors while the injectors required to run e85 are 1000cc

I recently went to Oklahoma for my job and was surprised to find non-ethanol fuel. I couldn't resist buying a tank to compare. My Corolla always gets 34 - 35 MPG with 10% ethanol blend. It got 40.2 MPG with non-ethanol fuel. I also find it odd that the Dept. of Agriculture oversees gasoline in Texas instead of the Dept. of Energy. When farmers couldn't make any money on corn, the law was passed to make ethanol blended fuel mandatory. Now farmers had a place to sell their corn. Corn prices skyrocketed and availability suffered, as did beef prices. Drought was not solely to blame.

Is your jump in economy due to the fuel change or you went on an almost all hwy road trip? In your example non ethanol fuel had a 16-17% increase in economy caused by 10% ethanol??? There has to be more to it than that!

Its interesting he only pushes down on the jars that turn all black. Maybe I missed it, but it seems like the one that is all clear he didn't.

Both are nearly all highway miles.

Something is amiss with your results. You could have had better economy than what you stated just by droping the 10% of real gas and not replacing it with anything. Sure E10 isn't as good for mileage, but its effects are not as great as what you are stating.

The idea would be to use smaller displacement to create the same amount of power. I don't think economy will be that different...down the road a bit.