I wish I could find ethanol free around here

 

How true, no different than fuel consumption on mine does not vary with changes in octane rating.

 

Elevation also matters for a naturally aspirated engine.

Where I live at 1,000 meters elevation we don't need anything higher than 91 except for some boosted engines which permit higher boost if the air is thin so higher relative boost is accepted by the higher octane fuels. Not all boosted engines can "overboost" under these conditions.

I strongly suspect my XF AWD V6SC does "overboost" in my thinner air to keep performance levels unimpaired by thinner air. I am using my seat of the pants dyno for that though, nothing objective. My 3.0 V6 AWD SC is supposed to be pretty much exactly the same as my 4.2 but it clearly isn't, it's much quicker.

 

Non ethanol gas is not the same price as ethanol gas in Rochester. 91 ethanol octane is 40 acents a gallon higher than 87 regular. Ethanol free 93 is addtl 55cents. Is an octane booster that costs 5 cents per gallon(Turbo 108) a good idea?

 

See above.

 

plums-
Maybe you could come back from "on the edge" and mention which market you are experiencing e-10 and no ethanol gas being the same price, because it sure isn't anywhere I have been in the US.

 

What amazes me is the number of people that fill up at the 'pure gas' pump despite the cost disadvantage.

Never underestimate the power of marketing and myth I suppose.

 

as they say ... a picture is worth a thousand words

time to put a nail in the coffin on this one.

Technical Specifications

That is the Shell V Power sold in Canada. The Platinum is the premium grade which is 91 octane aki. It is ethanol free.

The Esso(Mobil) premium grade is also 91 octane aki and it is not ethanol free. It is E-10.

When the stations are close together the pump prices will be within 1/10 of a cent of each other.

That means you can choose either brand and pay the same price for the same octane rating but one will be ethanol free.

The truth is, there is no cost disadvantage to preferring ethanol free within an octane grade.

Case in point is the report above taken a few minutes ago from gasbuddy.com. The reason for the "highest price reported" chart is that the name brands are in that chart as opposed to the regional brands in the "lowest price reported" chart. The site is cited by cbc.ca which is the national broadcaster.

The city selected is Ottawa which is the closest major city from Perth.

So the claim that there is a difference in cost should be taken with a huge boulder of salt.

Some people might label such a claim to be a "myth".

++

 

Very nice plums- but sparkenzap lives in Atlanta GA.

 

Speaking of a picture being worth a 1000 words- here's the one I referred to way up above showing a $0.33 difference between pure gas and E10 of the same octane level.

Guess it's not a myth, huh?

 

I found a gas station near me that sells 91 octane, alcohol free gas. I filled up yesterday, so we'll see if I notice any difference. It's a bit more expensive, but only .30c or so a gallon.

 

Assuming you're paying around $3.75 a gallon for 91 octane E10, I think you'll find that even with the small (3-4%) increase in mileage, paying .30 cents a gallon additional is not cost effective.

 

Plums:
I asked the question about your location since I recognized that gasoline and its marketing might very well be different in different markets. In fact, I am sure you are quite right about the cost and the ethanol content content of gas in your area of Canada, after reading your data.

You might consider that not everyone will be operating under your parameters when you make such definitive statements as you did about market pricing "in North America". I know you Canadians are proud to be part of NA, but there is a portion of NA referred to as USA, and our market is different. Here, even Shell V1 has ethanol. Some parts of the US mandate gasoline emissions to be at a certain level and apparently, the economical method to meet the requirement is by adding ethanol.

Here in the southeast, at least in metropolitan areas, about the only time I see ethanol free gasoline is near a marina, where it is used for 2 cycle engines. And it is a heck of a lot more than 7 cents per gallon premium. BTW, notice I did not argue with your claim that E-10 has less energy than E-0, just the economic impact.

While there is much better and definitive info on Ethanol in the US easily available on the web, I guess you like "Gasbuddy" as a reference...

 

Sparkenzap-

I think plum's mention of Canada and the Ottawa region in particular was yet another ill-planned attempt to dismiss some of the discussion initiated by myself above. I live about an hour from Ottawa.

I'm not sure what country plums lives in.

You're entirely right that the markets in the US and Canada differ in many respects. There's very little fuss about ethanol up here as we've had it for so long that it's ancient news and have more important things to worry abut, like the hockey scores or wondering what Rob Ford is going to do next. There's no real demand for E0.

I'd never heard of a pump that dispenses both E10 and E0 until a few months ago and in fact asked an acquaintance to take the picture of one (posted above). Still seems weird (to me) to have such a thing and stranger still that a person would pay an excessive premium to buy E0.

I live in an area with almost more lakes and boats than roads and cars so there's plenty of marinas nearby with E0. Never seen a car filling up on it and hope I never do. My own boat was specifically built to run on E10 and that's all it gets.

 

Oh, I see! Well, he is going to have a hell of a lot bigger job showing data on E0 near Atlanta GA! And there are enough Jaguars in the US to discount our data as unimportant. In the past, in non metro areas, we could buy E0 in the winter months fairly easily. I did not have my XFR then, but my XJR did not run noticeably different on E0. I will try plums measurement of STFT variation next time I get a chance to buy E0 (as long as it is not too expensive!).

 

Sam’s Club is run by Walmart and has extremely high turnover with frequently long waiting lines.
That’s due to prices up to 15 cents per gallon lower than the average gas station.
Depending on where you live, their gas comes from a local refinery. That one refinery supplies all the gas stations in the area. Major cities ( like mine) might have 2 refineries. But it’s a marketing myth that one stations gasoline is substantially different than another’s.
Have you ever seen a Shell refinery? Or a Shell oil well? Even a Shell oil tanker?

I believe you have a problem other than gasoline.

 

In Connecticut we have 93 as standard