Blog: Who Killed the Only EPA Certified E85 Conversion Kit?

by Holly Jessen (Ethanol Producer Magazine) ... To write this, I talked to Chris Disher and Max Kinast. As Disher said, it’s a story full of controversy, intrigue and lies. And, even though that conversion kit was ultimately certified by the U.S. EPA, the company is no longer producing or selling the product. So who killed Flex Fuel U.S.?

“We had nothing but challenges, spent millions more than we needed to and at the end of the day it’s pretty clear that the Department of Energy doesn’t want a flex fuel car alternative to be successful,” Disher told me.

The goal, Disher said, was to create a technology that would help reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil and reduce CO2 emissions. Ethanol, Disher believes, is the “single best silver bullet” to accomplish those goals. “We thought that the government would be supportive, but they were not,” he said.

Then, finally, the certification process was successful. “After we got that certification, the phone started ringing,” Kinast said. Just to name a few successes, kits were installed on City of Chicago police cars and on limos in operation in Los Vegas. Jeep expressed interest. The list was long and impressive.

Getting the kits on 25 police cars in Chicago created an ideal testing ground, Disher says. Those vehicles were, A., filled up exclusively with E85 after the conversion was complete, and, B., driven 24 hours a day, seven days a week, adding up to millions of miles in just a few years. But, although the City of Chicago estimated it was losing only 18 percent fuel economy, Flex Fuel U.S. experienced pushback from the DOE when the company used those numbers. In fact, to this day, the DOE claims using E85 in a Ford Focus causes a 29 percent fuel economy loss. Disher pointed me to this DOE website.

But it wasn’t just fuel economy numbers that were wonky. The DOE website offers fleet managers information about ethanol that also shows an increase in price. “The default of 29 percent is the extreme based on a BTU calculation,” Disher told me. “They assume E0 (Not E10) and summer E85 (81 percent ethanol). It shows not only a loss of 29 percent fuel economy but also shows that E85 costs 30 percent more! $3.07 per gallon for E85? That is compared to gasoline at $2.35. That is a 31 percent difference. Now the DOE calls this a ‘GGE’ Gasoline gallon equivalent, meaning since you lose 31 percent fuel economy (yes 31 percent!). You need to account for that loss in your budget. Yet they ignore real market prices and assume E85 and E0 cost the same per gallon. That is simply bad math but government staff use this calculation almost religiously as they compare ethanol to CNG applications.”

So here’s a government agency, saying that E85 increases emissions, costs a lot more and offers such bad fuel economy that no sane person would ever want to drive a FFV or use E85. “Those things are flat out lies, and they know it,” Disher says.

Today, the company is on hold, Disher said. Although Flex Fuel U.S. was successful in developing a conversion kit that made it through the EPA certification process Ford, Lincoln, Dodge and Chrysler passenger car and light truck models equipped with 5.7L Hemi motors, including Charger, Magnum, Chrysler 300, Dodge Ram and Durango. (For model years and more details, see this webpage.) The hope is that they will be able to find someone interested in their patent. “We produced a product that is a high performance technology that takes advantage of the benefits of ethanol in ways that the existing cars don’t,” he said. READ MORE