e85 fuel stations

With gas prices on the way back up for this summer, now is not a bad time to consider buying a flex-fuel car or perhaps consider an after market conversion kit. For more information on this, view the flex fuel conversion post. Currently there are 1,158 e85 gas stations in 40 states excluding Washington DC in the United States. In the table below, check to see how many e85 gas stations are in your state.

e85 fuel stations
Alabama 1 Iowa 60 Minnesota 307 New York 6 Virginia 5
Arkansas 2 Idaho 2 Missouri 68 Ohio 39 Washington 6
Arizona 7 Illinois 152 Mississippi 1 Oregon 4 Wisconsin 68
California 4 Indiana 81 Montana 1 Pennsylvania 10 West Virginia 2
Colorado 17 Kansas 19 North Carolina 12 South Carolina 42 Wyoming 5
District of Columbia 2 Kentucky 4 North Dakota 25 South Dakota 56    
Delaware 1 Massachusetts 1 Nebraska 29 Tennessee 5    
Florida 12 Maryland 5 New Mexico 5 Texas 33    
Georgia 7 Michigan 40 Nevada 8 Utah 4    

GM wants more E85 stations

The auto industry executive says the ethanol industry must work to make higher blends of ethanol more readily available as an increasing number of car buyers begin driving flex-fuel vehicles.

Mary Beth Stanek, GM’s director for Environment and Energy, comments that the company remains committed to flex-fuel technology, but also is working on the development of electric hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell technology.

Since there is only so much funding available for research and development “we need to see a corresponding of support from the (e85) industry” to make sure the fuels are available to all drivers and that the flex-fuel automobiles “are experiencing the fuel,” said Stanek, who manages GM’s partnerships with ethanol producers.

“We’re not going to work on power trains when we don’t have fuel for it, and we’re certainly going to make sure that it’s economical for consumers as well,” she told many of the renewable fuels industry leaders and media who attended a biofuels forum put on by Successful Farming magazine on Tuesday.

Making available E85, an 85 percent ethanol – 15 percent gasoline blend, should not be “as hard as people are making it,” Stanek said.

“I’m not saying it’s easy, but we can all work together to get more E85 out there,” she said. “I just don’t feel it’s insurmountable.”

While the ethanol industry frequently announces the opening of new E85 pumps, the blend really is “a classic chicken and the egg” scenario, said Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association.

To make E85 a mainstream product, he said there needs to be vehicles that can burn E85, the infrastructure to make it and transport it, and the need for more technology to produce enough ethanol to supply the higher E85 demands. That includes more development and funding to cellulosic ethanol production, which breaks down any organic material from various plants, not just corn, to produce ethanol.

GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler have said they plan to have half of annual vehicle production be E85 flexible fuel or biodiesel capable by 2012. For the Detroit based GM, that means ramping up production from 400,000 of the E85 flex-fuel vehicles each year up to 800,000.

The cost of the items that help vehicles use E85 ranges from $150 to $500. But for auto manufacturers, Stanek said the investment into the technology and research to make the autos run correctly on E85 is “quite expensive.”

“It’s not the parts in the box, it’s about the investment into the engineering expense,” she declared. “We are willing to do that, and we’re going as fast as we can.”

e85 Ethanol fuel stations keep poping up – Updated State by State List

Since the last publishing of the ethanol e85 state list, the number of fueling locations in various states has jumped dramatically. Back on June 16th, there were only 637 e85 ethanol fueling stations in America. Four months later, that number has increased to 922 e85 stations with states like Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa to thank. While the numbers have been mostily positive, unfortunately, there are still twelve states that do not offer it at all. Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont do not have any e85 fueling locations. What can be done to get these states in on ethanol? As with all the articles on this site, if you have an idea or comment, I encourage you to leave a message below this post. Perhaps your idea could get the ball rolling for e85 ethanol in these states.

Fuel Station State by State Data – updated 10-19-2006

STATE CNG E85 LPG ELEC BD HY LNG State
Totals
Alabama 1 1 59 0 1 0 0 62
Alaska 1 0 11 0 0 0 0 12
Arizona 31 6 63 11 5 1 4 121
Arkansas 4 0 57 0 4 0 0 65
California 179 3 235 381 31 23 30 882
Colorado 21 14 67 2 19 0 0 123
Connecticut 10 0 17 3 1 0 0 31
Delaware 1 0 3 0 3 0 0 7
DC 1 2 0 0 1 1 0 5
Florida 20 6 56 2 10 0 0 94
Georgia 19 7 48 0 19 0 0 93
Hawaii 0 0 4 5 3 0 0 12
Idaho 7 2 27 0 13 0 1 50
Illinois 14 129 64 0 12 0 0 219
Indiana 11 40 36 0 9 0 0 96
Iowa 0 53 25 0 13 0 0 91
Kansas 3 11 49 0 3 0 0 66
Kentucky 0 6 31 0 5 0 0 42
Louisiana 8 0 12 0 1 0 0 21
Maine 1 0 6 0 2 0 0 9
Maryland 15 7 15 0 6 0 0 43
Massachusetts 11 0 23 20 6 0 0 60
Michigan 15 26 84 0 15 3 0 143
Minnesota 3 271 34 0 4 0 0 312
Mississippi 0 1 36 0 6 0 0 43
Missouri 7 45 82 0 47 0 0 181
Montana 3 3 31 0 5 0 0 42
Nebraska 2 30 23 0 2 0 0 57
Nevada 16 6 25 0 28 1 0 76
New Hampshire 3 0 14 10 10 0 0 37
New Jersey 15 0 11 0 1 0 0 27
New Mexico 9 4 55 0 5 0 0 73
New York 37 6 28 0 5 0 0 76
North Carolina 11 15 65 0 39 0 0 130
North Dakota 4 23 15 0 0 0 0 42
Ohio 12 16 75 0 20 0 0 123
Oklahoma 53 4 72 0 7 0 0 136
Oregon 14 3 34 8 14 0 0 73
Pennsylvania 33 9 63 0 12 1 0 118
Rhode Island 7 0 4 2 0 0 0 13
South Carolina 5 39 34 1 35 0 0 114
South Dakota 0 39 18 0 0 0 0 57
Tennessee 4 5 51 0 30 0 0 90
Texas 20 20 564 1 38 0 2 645
Utah 63 4 23 0 4 0 0 94
Vermont 1 0 7 1 6 1 0 16
Virginia 11 4 22 0 16 0 0 53
Washington 14 4 60 0 22 0 0 100
West Virginia 1 2 7 0 0 0 0 10
Wisconsin 16 51 46 0 3 0 0 116
Wyoming 11 5 32 0 13 0 0 61
Totals: 748 922 2523 447 554 31 37 5262