Well, sort of day two really as I didn’t go anywhere yesterday.

This morning I went to Frankfurt on the motorway and was able to test the accelaration properly – I am more than impressed and I think it was even smoother and faster than my last car (maybe because the engine is a bit more powerful anyway).

This afternoon I had to go to Friedrichsdorf which took me through the middle of Bad Homburg. Again, apart from being a bit more powerful there I don’t think I could have told that bio-ethanol was in the tank if I didn’t actually know.

I managed to stall a couple of times on the car park, however. As it was 15°C I don’t think this can be down to the cold we had the rest of the week. Maybe it was me being too careful?

I have done just over 100km and that has used about 1/4 of the tank apparently, the board computer tells me that I have 500km left (the tank is currently filled just with E85 bio-ethanol and not yet mixed with normal petrol). This works out at 12l/100km, which is 23.5 mpg (UK) or 19.6 mpg (US). [Here is a useful conversion calculator]

The bio-ethanol car that I ordered in August has arrived and I collected it this morning.

On first impression it is a normal Ford Focus, but with one critical difference – it has a power socket at the front to heat up the ethanol in scandanavian countries.

Currently it has a full tank of E85 bio-ethanol fuel and I’ve been driving with it this afternoon both through the town and on the motorway – appart from the initial smell of the ethanol there is no apparent difference in the way it drives.

In the next few weeks I shall be trying out the new petrol station and seeing how the ethanol reacts to the cold temperatures, even mixing it with normal Super (95 Octane) petrol.