Ethanol vs Gasoline - Which Type of Fuel is Best for Your Car 

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This is a guy who knows how to make videos. No long boring introductions, constantly moving, constantly to the point, always mixing it up with the camera angle so we don't get bored. We're so overstimulated these days that if he slowed down I might just turn on cat videos.

"And the corn is turned into the ethanol, like this: The corn, goes to a refining plant, where it's turned into barrels of ethanol!" lmfaooo, I died at this explanation, very elaborate <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="121">2:01</a>

every time you watch him you learn something new, even if you thought there wouldn't be anything new to learn

Greetings from Brazil, we use a lot of ethanol in here, the only practical problemas are the cold start (won't start in temperatures below 15° celcius, but you can use a start gasoline injector wich makes the job much easier), and the worse gas mileage, but the last one is compensated by the price, and in fact is really cleaner than gasoline, you will notice at your oil change, when you reach the oil mileage change you'll see perfectly the diference, the used oil gets out of the engine much clenaer than the one the ran in a gasoline vehicle... But the power, in a carburated vehicle you can have almost 20% difference in the performance, ethanol can hold more compression rate, that's why it can deliver more power... it's widely used in performance cars in here... thank you Kilmer, keep it up!!!

I knew you get worse gas mileage with Ethanol, but had no idea it burned cleaner but it makes perfect sense. Thank you Scotty for explaining this I learned something from it.

Hello Scotty! Great video as always! Thank you! I'm brazillian, and i would like to contribute with some facts: - Our regular gasoline currentlly has 27% Ethanol ,making it RON 95 , it costs about 30% more per liter than Ethanol - Our Ethanol (before it was called Hidrated Alcohol) has 5% water on it. RON 110. - The majority of our cars can run on any mixture of the fuels and they have a gasoline reservoir fitted under the hood, in case of the water temperature is under 16 C degrees the ECU automatically injects some gasoline when the engine is starting. - The price x mileage of both is the same, so you can pick the fuel you like most. - Regarding electronic problems, sometimes people change the fuel on their vehicles and don't drive enough to the ECU make the recognition of the fuel, then the car won't start on the next day because it thinks it's using the other fuel (The A/F ratio gets all crazy).

*Scotty Kilmer the Science Guy :)*

Scotty is like the shop teacher everyone always wants

Hey I am from Brazil Scotty, your channel rocks! I already rang that bell. ;) And yes most Brazilian cars are flex fuel, even the gasoline that is sold here has arround 25% of ethanol on it, so it is reasonable that manufacturers avoid gasoline only engines, as they corrode over time using such fuel. I wish we had more options, as we are somewhat forced to use a non-pure gasoline, and the ethanol prices can vary quite a lot, depending on the season, due to the plantations producing less, or more.

Your still a big help to this day I wish we could see you more this generation will need you ❤

Love the way you dumb it down for anyone thats watching can understand because not everyone knows a lot about cars and engines great videos thanks a lot

I laughed so damn hard at the ethanol manufacturing segment. I love these videos lol

If you were a teacher I would never ditch class. Keep these coming Scotty!

I always know where to look for a straight forward, no nonsense explanation.

Scotty. .. I learn a lot from your videos. I said thank you to your other videos but every time I watch another I gotta repeat myself. Thank you! Hello from Vancouver Canada

The Corn goes to a refining plant, where it's turned into barrels of Ethanol! Love you, Scotty. Thanks for yet another awesome vid.

E85 is where it’s at. Especially for turbocharged cars! You can inject more fuel into your cylinders which helps cool the engine down. Because stoichiometry says that ethanol with still combust at a higher fuel to air ratio than regular petroleum. Also Ethanol, regardless of how much fuel you might be injecting, has some beneficial cooling properties when compared to regular gasoline. E85 is just less volatile in general. Thus less likely to detonate prematurely, and that is aided by coinciding cooler engine temperatures. So there is a less likelihood for engine knock basically. (Knock is bad boys and girls). All that means to a tuner is that they can run more boost and add more aggressive timing without the increased probability of premature detonations. E85 can help with other sorts of heat related engine damage. Be careful tho, E85 is less of a lubricant then regular gasoline so I would suggest that you change your oil on a more frequent basis. Lastly E85 can be quite corrosive to certain types of rubber used in the automotive industry. So if you decide to convert your car to E85 make sure that you replace the compromised fuel lines, couplers and O-rings with a E85 approved variant.

You are my go to for all things automotive Scotty. Thank you for your videos.

Hey Scotty I like your vids so much Keep up 🖒🖒

I'm glad I found your video. I'm looking into a conversion kit that would presumably allow the car to run on E10 or E85. Its called APE X85. Whats your opinion on that? can a module really retune the car to take ethanol? thanks

Love this video! Got straight to the point and answered the questions i needed!

Love your enthusiasm Scotty

Am I missing something or does Ethanol make more sense for the environment than mining lithium?

Hey Scotty! Is there any point in alternating between the two constantly? Someone told me that gas lubricates more and ethanol cleans that lubrication, so alternating would have some benefit. What do you think? Keep up the great content!!

Always a good use of time to watch scottys channel. Entertaining and always learning something.

First time watching your video scotty, makes complete sense and you're very entertaining... thank you!!

I love the scientific voice over “corn goes to the refinery where they turn it into barrels of ethanol”

I have a lot of his videos in my favorite, it's like maintenance archives.

That was fun, entertaining, and educational! Thanks! 👍👍👍

Great info! Thanks Mr. Kilmer 👍😁

Scotty you look like your getting younger....keep up the good videos....

Hey Scotty, I'm from Brazil and I have to say, you did some pretty good research on that matter. Here because of the farmers' pressure on ethanol sales and prices, our gasoline is mixed with 27% (!!) of ethanol, while premium gas have anywhere between 20% to 25%. Pure ethanol is also available at any gas station with very atractive prices (and modern cars have decent mileage running on it as well, so it can be worth). That omnipresence of ethanol dates back from the Petrol Crisis in the 70's I think. The government developed a plan to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels. At that time, cars running exclusively on ethanol were very popular. Today, with the drop of the gasoline prices, there are no cars running ethanol only, most of them are flexfuel while some runs on gasoline and diesel. P.S.: I've learned lots of stuff with your channel, mainly because I just recently got my driver's license and for newbies like me it can really help.

I love scotty..... The little history at the biginning was very short and straight to the point.

Scotty I really enjoy ur Content... its no BS and straight to the point..

Many stations here sell both E-85 and ethanol free, right along with the 10% ethanol regular gas. Talk about choices!

I love the new style of videos with the effects. Keep it up !

Your the best ! I didn't know anything about flex fuel vehicles and all it took was for you to pop out of that car trunk to fully understand it !

Very enjoyable video and very informative as well keep up the good work.

Thanks for the insight👍🏾. Also, the price per gallon in Houston is about $.50 cheaper for E-85. I'm not sure, but that could offset the advantage of better gas mileage a bit.

Very informative video Scotty!

Dude! Great job! Thank you for your video!

Nice one scotty. Great run down

I had a 2011 Tacoma, and with premium gas (no ethanol) I could get about 100 more km per tank (60mi) than with the cheaper regular gas, which had ethanol. Cost per mile was not much different, despite the higher price for premium. What I liked was the longer distance between fills.

I've seen some gas stations offer "ethanol-free" gasoline as well as the regular gas that does contain some ethanol. Is there any benefit to this other than maybe better gas milage? Is it better for a car's engine? It costs as much premium but doesn't have quite as high of an octane rating.

Very well done Scotty. A well informed explanation 👍

I actually just found this channel and I'm glad I did it's very informative and surprisingly entertaining.. (that's rare to find both)

Nice presentation Scotty, The local pump price for regular 87 octane is currently $2.50. E85 is $1.59. I have a flex fuel Yukon. Tank average is about 3 mpg less in town per tank. Performance difference is not noticeable. It also starts just fine in Minnesota year round. Btw: it is an old 2002 with 250,xxx miles now on primarily E85. Oil is still clean upon scheduled changes. However, I do run non ethanol in my seasonal small engines as most fuels nowdays do not keep long. Better yet is the availability of hybrid vehicles and the release by Toyota and Hyundai of the Fuel cell(hydrogen) production vehicles. Check them out! Please review them for us Scotty!

Alcohol? SO I CAN RUN MA 14 INCH LIFTED TRUCK ON MOONSHIENE!?!? YEEE YE SIGN ME UP FELLER!

I noticed cleaner edits in this one. Good work! I love the channel!

Very detailed explanation how ethanol is made!

I'm thinking of tunning my engine to run it for more power. Corn is horrible for making ethanol but our government is being bribed (er i mean lobbied) to subsidize corn growers.

so, an E85 car could run pure Ethanol (I believe E98 it's technically called, as a small bit of water gets stuck in the mixture) it would just struggle to start in the cold?

Awesome explanation thanks Scotty.

Amazing! Thanks for this.

Greetings from Brazil: we have two pump choices here, the E100 (almost 100% ethanol) and gas (wich actually is E27). There's no pure gasoline here, no way to buy "E0". Very expensive fuels and pretty easy to get gasoline with solvents and ethanol diluted with water.

The OEM's (mostly US brands) whose vehicles can use E85 don't promote it at all and most people are not even aware of it, which it's a shame cause we could be saving a lot more petroleum and thus become more energy independent.

Great vid dude

Love your videos Scotty have a good day

Love it. Straight facts, quick and concise.

I used to work in the ethanol industry. There are a lot of misconceptions about E-85 and the industry as a whole. From the myth that it drives up food prices (it doesn't. If anything, it lowers them.) to the claim that it can damage your engine (it can't). Some people hear "flexfuel" and think that means their engine is equally capable of using either gas or ethanol. It's more accurate to say that you have a gasoline engine that CAN burn ethanol, although it wasn't designed to run as efficiently on it. In most non-flexfuel cars, you can usually safely burn up to E-50 without damaging anything. The biggest reasons why you usually can't run straight ethanol is because A) it doesn't compress quite as well gasoline. So there exists a possibility of incomplete/late burning in the cylinder. And B) ethanol burns cooler than gasoline (also can contribute to A) so it can negatively impact your catalytic converter.

So It wouldn’t hurt to try E85 in my truck with 160k on it? Even if I go back to regular gas afterwords? It’s a 07 Silverado with a yellow gas cap and a flex vehicle.

Very informative video... thanks

Love your videos very informational.

love that detailed explanation of how ethanol is made

Wow, now I can share my corn tacos with my car! :D

Great information Scotty.

Thank you for the introduction to of its use.

Can you use kerosene in a diesel? Just curious. This is a great video very informative.

I think after seeing this video I'm meant to run e85. I live in Brazil, Indiana lol.

Awesome info.

I changed my fuel lines, and fuel pump to run only E85. But that's just one of the many modifications on my car. Love the videos

Thumbs up. How can ethanol give the engine more power when it has 20% less power than gasoline?

RIght... ethanol fuel is good if you use it quickly, I drive few miles, so I use Ethanol free as it does not turn to water in the tank. In my F150 V8 I get better mileage, and power.

Thanks Scotty

Love the new graphics.

You forgot to mention the shorter shelf life for E85.

I recently tried e85 for the first time recently and i was surprised by the significant Cheaper price, and i got just about the same gas mileage on the highway. I have a 2014 Impala Limited with the Lfx 3.6l engine and it loved that 105 octane rating. I think running E85 made really no difference in loss of gas mileage bc i have a performance engine, and i think others who try it end up getting horrible gas mileage bc they have just some tiny 4 banger and adding e85 with its 105 octane does them no good.

Great vid Scotty my first sub ya hope you have a wicked awesome day. Be well be safe.

Great video . I have a 2000 Ford Ranger XLT Supercab 4X4 Flexfuel.

Us landscapers just hate ethanol in our outboard power equipment 😥

I accidentally put e85 in my truck I filled it up it ran perfect and it's not a flex fuel

Thank you so much best video short n to the point plus fun

great video, thank you

You really need an engine with a higher compression ratio (<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="901">15:1</a>) to take advantage of ethanol's higher effective octane rating and the better thermodynamic efficiency that comes along with a higher compression ratio. Lower combustion temperatures of ethanol (vs gasoline) might really reduce the benefit of adding a turbocharger to increase the effective compression ratio. If I were to buy an E85 vehicle, I would rather go all-in, and have it run only on E85 with higher compression and better efficiency. I can carry around a few bottles of octane booster for those times when E85 isn't available.

In general, Scotty's information in the video is correct, and the best part is that he has a very good understanding of ethanol fuels. I say this because there are far too many so-called auto experts and science people who don't have a clue. All they do is repeat all of the nonsense lies created by the oil industry to bad mouth ethanol. Here's the information I would add to the video: The "energy content" of ethanol has nothing to do with why a gasoline-powered vehicle will get less mileage when you use ethanol or an ethanol-gasoline blend. The reason for the mileage loss is because the engine is not optimized to run on ethanol. Even flex-fuel cars are not optimized to run on ethanol, they (the on-board computers) merely have the ability to recognize the difference in the fuel and make an adjustment in the air mixture. However, engines that are optimized to run on ethanol will produce equal or better MPG than the gasoline-optimized engines. In the video, Scotty says that ethanol contains about 20% less energy. Although energy content is irrelevant (as explained above), the difference in so-called energy content is about 33%, not 20%. Gasoline has 116,000 BTUs, ethanol has 78,000 BTUs (the difference is 38,000 BTUs - 38,000 divided by 116,000 equals 32.7%). But, you also have to take into account thermal efficiency. Gasoline does not burn as efficiently as ethanol, which is why there is so much debris from gasoline (the black soot/pollutants). Gasoline burn efficiency is about 75%, compared to ethanol's near 100%. Therefore the true energy content comparison should be that gasoline has the equivalent of 87,000 BTUs, and ethanol has 78,000 BTUs. The difference is then only about 10%, not 32.7%. William J. Hale, one of the world's top "chemurgists" wrote about this in his various papers, including his book "Prosperity Beckons," which was published in 1936. There were many other studies and experiments done to illustrate this, including the two thousand tests conducted by the U.S. Navy in 1907-08. And finally, all gasoline-powered vehicles (not just flex fuel vehicles) can use E85. But, if your vehicle is not a flex fuel vehicle and you use too much E85, your vehicle's on-board computer may not recognize the fuel and cause the vehicle to run rough - and the "check engine" light will illuminate. Almost all gasoline-powered vehicles can run fine with blends up to E40 or E50 with no check engine light. In fact, studies have shown that all gasoline-powered vehicles (flex fuel and non-flex fuel) will get their best MPG when using a blend of E30 to E40. This alone proves that BTU rating is irrelevant in internal combustion engines. And, this is why vehicles in Brazil can use E27 with no problems. Since there are virtually no blender pumps (very few) where you can get E30 to E40, you have to "splash blend" your own mix by pumping in some E85 and then pumping in regular gasoline (E10) to approximate the desired proportions. I'm happy to provide references for any of the above points, if you're interested. Marc J. Rauch Exec. Vice President THE AUTO CHANNEL

Very good info

great video thanks

I love ya Scotty but here's a news flash; I ran 50% e-85 in a 2001 Saturn for 7 years and it worked perfectly! The highest octane you can achieve in regular gasoline is 93 octane I believe: E 85 is 103 to 105 octane. I lose about 10% gas mileage, but I pay between $.50 and $.85 less per gallon here in Michigan. Do the math! It's a no-brainer for me. Not only does it burn cleaner, it burns about 300° cooler, and we know the two things that break down an engine faster than anything is heat and grit from the oil deposits. The book "Alcohol can be a gas" educated me on e-85 years before most people knew what it was. In Brazil they run e-100 and the motor oil never turns black. They have options to burn other things other than ethanol. They export most of their oil now, and since they nationalized their Oil, most of the money goes to help the people of that country and not the greedy oil companies!

Welfare-farmers like to be able to buy new $60k pickups every year, and most of them are diesel like their tractors. It's hilarious.

Thanks Scotty..good to know.👍

A good overview! Being a fellow Texan, E85 usually doesn't end up making much sense. I did some experiments with E85 and also the very rare ethanol free gasoline and found that "regular" gas (aka "E10") made the most economic sense (price per mile). But if we lived in a heavily subsidized state where the price of E85 was 20% or more cheaper than gas, E85 would be the way to go. Here in Waco E85 is usually no more than 10 cents cheaper per gallon. Of course I still make the long drive to pick up ethanol free gas for my carbureted lawn stuff.

"The best fuel is JAPANESE fuel"

One thing you forgot to mention. Maintenance on an E85 vehicle is different from a regular gasoline engine. My brother had a 2013 Impalla that was a Flexfuel vehicle and when it came down to the oil changes, he could only use synthetic motor oil and the local shop wanted to charge him $95 just for an oil change. I told him I watch Scotty Kilmer videos and could save him some money and do the oil change myself. 😁

Thank you!

e85 = 100 more HP on my protuned sti compared to CA91 octane.

Just being curious... Does americans use LPG instead of petrol? Here in Europe LPG systems are pretty common and is twice as cheaper than traditional gasoline...

Damn! i always wanted to do that, bang a big bell. learned something again, thanks Scotty!

The man 🙏🏼🙌🏼

Scotty, why didn't you mention what alcohol blended fuel does that hurts your engine? For those who are wondering, alcohol blended fuel even 10% blended will ruin your fuel lines and corrode anything aluminum it touches potentially leading to thousands in repair costs. Most newer cars can handle 10% blended without any difference in fuel/air tune but lawn mowers, chainsaws, or anything with a carburetor will need to be tuned richer for 10% blended or you will burn them up. That's if the alcohol doesn't corrode the inside of your carburetor into white powder first.