EYEing ETHanol: Sheriff’s Office Looks to Ethanol Fuel for Its Fleet
by Stacy Langley (Huron Daily Tribune) In early March, the Huron County Sheriff’s Office began an experiment that had the department eyeing the possibility of saving the county money by using ethanol fuel for its fleet of flex-fuel vehicles.
Sheriff Kelly J. Hanson, who admits he was skeptical at first about switching from unleaded fuel to ethanol, had a change of heart when he did some calculating. Hanson found as long as ethanol prices are less per gallon than the price at the pump for unleaded fuel, it would result in a significant cost savings.
“Because our vehicles have no normal driving pattern, an average had to be taken over several days in order to determine whether ethanol would work or not,” said Hanson. “As it turns out, our patrol fleet, which is mainly Chevrolet Impala cars, averaged between 1.5 miles to 2 miles less per gallon on E85 as opposed to unleaded.”
The Department also experimented with E50 and found that there was just about a 1 mile per gallon difference.
…“Our main focus will be on the patrol car fleet, which consists of nine vehicles,” said Hanson. “Unfortunately, E85 is not available in all areas (of the county) where our patrol cars are based.” READ MORE
