E15: Good For Corn Farmers, Confusing For The Rest Of Us

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May 042012
 

EPA is announcing today that they are ready to approve E15 (15% ethanol) gasoline blends, but only for 2007 model year and newer vehicles.

That's silly.
Are gas station owners really going to set aside one or two pumps for E15, and label them?   Consumers would then be faced with 5 types of gasoline choose from: base, mid-grade, premium, E85, and E15.  Some people will be confused and put E15 in pre 2007 vehicles.  Others will be confused and shun E15.  
EPA should have waited to see if E15 was good for all "modern" vehicles, and then switched E10 to E15, since they are apparently required to enrich the corn farmers and ethanol refiners.
People running E15 should expect to see a small degradation in fuel economy.  Since ethanol is about 25% less energy rich than gasoline, switching from E10 to E15 should look like a 1.3% fuel economy reduction, or about 0.4 mpg in a car that averages 27 mpg.  Switching from E0 to E15 will cost about 3.8%, or about 1 mpg.

Buick Wagon Lust

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May 032012
 
I can't remember the last time I felt open, unguarded lust about a Buick.  But now GM comes out with a Buick turbo wagon, as if breathing the ghost of Saab back into Buick.  Please tell us, GM, that this lovely piece of rolling practical sculpture will come with manual transmission.
Autoblog has photos.

Fiat’s Nero

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May 022012
 

This morning on Autoline Detroit, John McElroy’s auto talk show, a Fiat lady stated that part of the Fiat 500′s ordering experience will be calling colors by their Italian names. So red will be rose, and black will be nero. Cue the Rome burns jokes. But what I don’t get is, why not call it Cinquecento then? For mist people, if you say “five hundred”, they will think of a very bland large sedan from Ford.

If you’re going to go Italian, go all in, that’s what I say.

Video: Robot Big Dog

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May 012012
 

This is a video of the “Big Dog” robot project, from Boston Dynamics. This is very impressive, especially how they programmed the robot to have reflexes, so that if it thinks it is falling or slipping, it splays out the appropriate leg and catches itself. The buzzing noise is from a small gasoline engine that they are using to generate self contained hydraulic power.


Awesome Lifelike Robotic Dog – Watch more free videos

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