Wednesday, June 18, 2008

E85 becoming more popular in Northwest Indiana

I'm not the only person using E85 in Northwest Indiana.

Some interesting quotes regarding E85 pricing:

The coalition recommends E85 be priced at least 20 percent less than regular unleaded to make up for a loss in fuel economy, Lampert said.


Family Express President and CEO Gus Olympidis said he dropped the price of E85 to $2.99 a gallon at his northern Indiana stations not only because ethanol "is cheaper right now than gasoline," but because U.S. grown corn goes into the blend.


Competing chain Gas City dropped E85 prices at several of its Northwest Indiana locations to about 60 cents below the going rate for regular unleaded gasoline in order to stay competitive, Gas City district manager JoEllen Jostef said.


And we all know that Meijer prices it at 50 cents less than regular.

So there you go. Meijer is gouging us by 50 cents a gallon for E85!

Seriously, if it should be priced 20% less than regular, which is at $4.02 at Meijer, they should be pricing E85 at 80 cents less. So they're gouging us by 30 cents.

Even a 20% discount for E85 may not properly reflect its true cost with a reasonable level of profit added. It STILL might be gouging!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Buzz,

Gas City is still expensive -- usually right around where Meijer's E85 price is -- from what I've observed in the recent past.

I'll be driving right by their US 30 station on Friday, so I'll check out their prices to see if they come within 50 cents of Family Express' prices.

Buzzcut said...

Hi Chris,

The article said that Gas City prices it 60 cents less than regular. Meijer prices it 50 cents less.

I'm sticking with Meijer. Part of the appeal is that I drive out of the subdivision and it's there.

I do wish we had a Family Express nearby though!

I'm also jealous of the prices I see on E86prices.com

Anonymous said...

All E85 users are paying less for E85 for one reason; state and federal subsidies. So in effect E85users are Welfare recipients. Congratulations you've made it you are what has replaced the welfare moms.

Buzzcut said...

I don't disagree that E85 users are welfare recipients. I happen to be a libertarian leaning conservative. I don't necessarily support the politics behind E85.

But this blog isn't about politics. It's about using E85 in a non-flex-fuel vehicle.

The fact is that E85 is out there. Just because you don't use it doesn't mean that it is going to go away. So why not try and take advantage of the resource?

Your tax dollars support it one way or another.

And, quite frankly, my tax bill was 5 figures last year. I DESERVE a break on some tax or another!!!!

Anonymous said...

On the issue of subsidies and ethanol: we are going to have to do something to break free from having to depend on the Middle East, Nigeria, Mexico and other not so fun places in the world for our fuel.

I'd rather subsidize some farmers in the Midwest than give some more money some rich oil family in the Middle East or the most corrupt government in the world -- Nigeria.

We can spend a lot of money in the Middle East subsidizing Saudi Arabian and other OPEC nations' security by maintaining a huge naval and military presence there -- all so that they can ship their oil to India and China without fear that their tankers will be attacked by some enemy.

We should be proud that someone in the US is making some money on fuel -- rather than shipping all of our hard earned money overseas while providing extremely expensive military subsidies to protect the oil shipping lanes.

Maybe one of these days we'll see a super-expensive and luxurious huge glass sailboat skyscraper built on the shores of Lake Michigan just like the Burj Al Arab.