Yes, that’s not a misprint. I just popped into my favourite local independent petrol station - Shoalhaven Ethanol Fuel at 215 Kinghorne St and they have ‘E85′ Ethanol fuel on sale at $1.05 a litre (they also had E10 Unleaded for $1.63 which compared pretty well with Friday prices in the rest of the stations in Nowra today!). Now, E85 is 85% ethanol, 15% unleaded petrol and before you throw up your hands in horror at the thought of running your vehicle on 85% (or any mixture of ethanol) - get the real facts here.The catch? Well you will need to get your vehicle fitted with a bi-fuel converter, which apparently will be a lot cheaper than an LPG conversion - around $400 depending on your engine. This clever device ‘knows’ when you are running on the higher octane E85 and adjusts the engine management system accordingly. The fantastic advantage of this is that if E85 isn’t available when you fill up, no problem!

Currently E85 is not available in many towns in NSW - closest ones to us are at Albion Park and one in Nowra at the moment, but it will apparently be available nationwide soon.

As well as the substantial price advantage, the higher 105 octane means that your engine has more power and runs cooler - so what’s the disadvantages? None that I can see and anything that reduces this countries dependence on offshore oil has to be a good thing.

For more info try these websites:
http://www.flexfuelkit.com.au * http://ethanolenhance.com.au/