Lotus Rental Car Company is exploring options regarding adding alternative fuel vehicles to its fleet. The Environmental Protection Agency defines alternative fuels ?as fuels that can replace ordinary gasoline. Alternative fuels may have particularly desirable energy efficiency and pollution reduction features. Alternative fuels include compressed natural gas, alcohols, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and electricity? (EPA, 2006). E85 fuel, a type of alternative fuel, is not the same as the 85, 87, 89, 91 or 92 octanes rated gasoline produced from oil seen at many gas pumps. E85 fuel is distinguished at the pump, specifically as ?E85? fuel and is an alternative fuel blend of ?85 percent ethanol, which comes from plants like corn, and 15 percent gasoline? (Mills, 2006). Specifically, adding E85 (Ethanol Based) fuel vehicles is advantageous to the Lotus Rental Car Company.
Henry Ford designed the first ethanol cars in the 1880?s to run on ethanol or gasoline.
E85 sticker in the back of the fuel filler door (l...
English: Typical Brazilian fuel station with a cho...
1996 Ford Taurus FFVIn the United States, ethanol?blended gasoline accounts for more than 10 percent of the total gasoline purchases. Ethanol is a product of fermented plant sugars derived from corn, potatoes, wood, waste paper, wheat and many other agricultural products and food waste. It is essentially 100 percent pure grain alcohol that is unfit to drink (EPA, 2002).
Lotus Rental Car Company faces several advantages for adding E85 fuel vehicles to the rental fleet. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, ethanol vehicles exhibit the same performance, payload acceleration and cruising speed as conventionally fueled vehicles. Consumers have a variety of choices with the availability of vans, trucks and luxury cars using E85 fuel (EPA, 2002).
The U.S. government is committed to finding alternative fuel sources and offers incentives, which include tax breaks for the automobile manufacturers and oil companies who provide E85 fuel at the pump. The current incentive for producing...