The El Paso Times reports on the disparity of flex-fuel vehicles to the availability of ethanol to fill their tanks.
U.S. automakers have stepped up production of vehicles that can run on ethanol, and El Pasoans can easily find such vehicles at some local new car dealerships.
The problem is that ethanol fuel, most of which is produced from corn, is not easily found.
El Paso has no stations selling the fuel dubbed E85 — 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. Fort Bliss has an E85 station, but only to fuel government vehicles on the Army post.
Only 1,261 stations in the United States sell E85 fuel, while the nation has about 168,000 gasoline stations, reported the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition, a Missouri-based E85 fuel advocacy organization.
The closest places to El Paso with E85 pumps are Albuquerque, with one station, and Tucson, with five stations, the coalition reported.
El Paso has more than 10,000 E85-compatible vehicles on the road, the coalition reported. Nationwide, an estimated 6 million E85-compatible vehicles are on the road, according to the coalition.
Read more here.
Photo of El Paso Chevrolet salesman Steve Boughton Sr. with a 2007 flex-fuel Impala by Vanessa Monsisvais of the El Paso Times.