The car that I have replaced it with no longer runs on bio-ethanol (E85), although it does use the new E10 fuel.

So how have those four years been and why did I switch back?

Well, whilst on the one hand it was nice to try something new and be environmentally friendly at the same time, it did come with some drawbacks.  The main one being that, although it was cheaper than normal petrol, the fuel consumption was slightly higher with bio-ethanol and at first there were only about 70 petrol stations in Germany selling it.

More recently, on the way to Rügen for example, I have come across some petrol stations on or near the motorways selling it, which has been a pleasant surprise.  But outside of Germany I don’t believe I’ve seen it yet on my travels.

With the higher consumption it has also meant that a day trip to somewhere like Cologne or Saarbrucken is just about possible without going to a petrol station on the way back, but it is pushing it if there are any hold ups.

But since most of my appointments are within a 20km radius of home, that was rarely an issue and I liked the convenience of driving to my local garage at any time of the day or night and filling up using my own coded key.  At the end of the month I just a received an invoice for the total due.

The real reason that I have reverted to a “normal” car though, is that Ford simply don’t make the “Flexifuel” model with the same specification as I had previously.

So instead I now have a car with an “EcoBoost” engine in it.  Apparently this uses 20% less fuel than a normal engine, and so is cheaper to run and has less emissions.  It also goes into a type of “standby” mode when you are waiting at traffic lights or level crossings, and recommends the driver which gear they should drive in for maximum fuel efficiency.

It may not be the great leap forward to using other forms of energy in cars, but I still hope that it is a step in the right direction.  I’ll let you know how I get on after a few hundred kilometres!

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• E10 in Germany – is your car compatible?
• Petrol prices in 2007
• Filling up with bio-ethanol for the first time

What sounds like a London post code is actually a mixture of normal petrol and bio-ethanol.  10% bio-ethanol to be precise, hence the name.

The reason for this is an EU directive (2009/30/EG) which intends to

• reduce carbon-dioxide emissions
• reduce dependency on the oil-producing countries

A similar step was taken a few years ago, when E5 was introduced – with 5% bio-ethanol.

And yet, the E10 is more controversial than E5 was.  For a start, it was said that almost all cars could run on E5 without modification, but for E10 this is not the case, and so petrol stations have to offer the normal “Super” type of petrol as well until 2013.  After that, owners of older cars may be forced to upgrade their vehicles or buy the more expensive “Super plus”, assuming that is still compatible.

The main reasons for a car not being compatible are

• the fuel lines not being strong enough, as bio-ethanol is more corrosive than normal petrol
• the motor not being able to handle the mixture, due to the lower energy capacity that bio-ethanol has

But it appears that E10 is here to stay, so if you are planning on visiting Germany this year, you might like to find out if your car is E10-compatible first.

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• E10 in Germany – is your car compatible?
• ZM – The Zusammenfassende Meldung
• Leb’ wohl, Bio-Ethanol

For my first visit, however, I decided to go there whilst it was open, just to make sure that there were no problems.

Actually there was a problem – a car had parked on the space in front of the bio-ethanol pump, and I had to wait about 15 minutes until it was moved.

After that I parked there myself, turned the key and filled up the car. As simple as that! Now I have a full tank and can work out for myself how much the car is using. The on-board computer says that I used 13.3litres/100km since I started driving the car, but I don’t know how many litres were in the tank when I got it so I can’t check that figure.

The first bio-ethanol petrol station in Germany,
located in Bad Homburg

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• Leb’ wohl, Bio-Ethanol
• Petrol prices in 2007
• Day 4: cruise control and parking

This is not as cold is it can get in winter here – I’ve experienced -18°C before now! But with the cold wind blowing it certainly felt different to the temperatures that we had been having the previous week.

When bio-ethanol gets cold it apparently gets sluggish. This is why there is a socket on the front of the car, so that I can attach it to the mains and warm the tank up slightly before driving off. Well, that’s the theory at least. As I don’t have an electrical socket anywhere near where I had parked the car, that wasn’t really a solution.

The alternative is to put some normal petrol into the tank during the winter. Again, the drop in temperature came so unexpected, that I hadn’t done this and had only E85 in the tank.

So I drove off anyway – and I can’t say that I noticed any difference. Perhaps the cold temperature hadn’t affected the bio-ethanol as much as I had expected? Perhaps it just wasn’t cold enough yet!

I shall be keeping a watchful eye on the thermometer and may well start mixing in some normal fuel next month.

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• Preparing for the coming winter
• 10 Things to do in Frankfurt in Winter
• Leb’ wohl, Bio-Ethanol

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Driving with Bio-ethanol

e85.biz
Ford Bioethanol

Some other posts on this topic that you might like to read:

• Leb’ wohl, Bio-Ethanol
• E10 in Germany – is your car compatible?
• New in 2011: E10