With all of the talk of America’s “Addition to Oil,” it’s been nice to see General Motors (GM) putting out advertisements about their FlexFuel vehicles. Hey man, if I can get a truck that runs on 85% CORN and 15% gasoline, I’m down. I can help out the American economy by buying something that is 85% manufactured in the US (corn); I can reduce greenhouse gases by using less oil and burning cleaner fuel; I can help secure a strong American company like GM that provides many jobs to hard-working Americans…sweet!
But oh wait…have you looked into these FlexFuel vehicles?
GM neglects to tell you that generally, this fuel costs the same as gas. Sure, when gas prices went crazy in the August/September time frame, this E85 gas was about 60 cents cheaper. Hey dude, 60 cents cheaper than $3.29 doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. Honestly, when gas cost that much money, I was buying premium – hell, if I’m going to spend over $3.00 per gallon on gas, it might as well be the good shit, right?
The folks at GM also neglect to tell you that FlexFuel vehicles may give you a stronger horsepower, but they have a much worse fuel efficiency than the oil-based gases that we use now. Close to 30% worse. Think about that. If you drive a gas-guzzling SUV like I do and you get about 15 miles to the gallon, switching to a FlexFuel vehicle will put you at a little over 10 miles to the gallon. Does this sound shady to you? GM pushes a technology that they are the leader of (ethanol as a fuel) that is in direct opposition to their competitors (hybrid vehicles) and oddly enough, the better this campaign does for them, the more ethanol you have to buy because these vehicles have crap fuel efficiency. So are we really reducing our dependence on oil if FlexFuels use about 15% oil and need to be filled up 30% more than our vehicles now? There’s some tricky math in there…
But the biggest punch in the balls with this marketing campaign is that they completely neglect to mention that these FlexFuel vehicles are NOT hybrid vehicles! That’s right, they’re not like the Toyotas or the Fords that get 50+ miles to the gallon via an electric and oil-based engine. GM’s FlexFuel vehicles get worse gas mileage and require more fill-ups (if you can even find a fill-up station in your state…New Jersey doesn’t have any and the only one in Pennsylvania is in Pittsburgh)!
This is a disingenuous marketing campaign if I’ve ever seen one. But then again, what do you expect from General Motors? This is the same company that is losing money hand over fist. Why don’t these big, mega corporations just realize that if they stop lying and stop pushing out these bogus marketing campaigns, we’ll stop hating them so much?
And seriously, who is the hero at GM that said, “It’s a worse product than a hybrid, it gets worse gas mileage, it requires more fill-ups, there’s no where to fill it up, we have a stake in the corn fields so we make money when they get the cars filled up, it doesn’t really reduce reliance on oil, and it costs the same as gas does now! It’s a winner!” Who said that?
Better yet, which idiot Board member approved it?
I had lots of questions about this Flexfuel because I have a Yukon that is Flex Fuel capable. I learned alot from what you had to say because my big question that they leave unanswered is the fuel economy that you get. I am all for not being dependant on oil, but just like you said 15% is still pretty dependant if you are filling up twice as much. I can’t afford to fill up any more that I do now. Besides the nearest station to us with E85 is about 25 miles. Thanks alot for what you had to say!!!
Good, I’m glad that the post helped you out!
One of the most disheartening parts about the entire thing is that NO ONE is giving these “small print” details any press coverage. I was just nuts enough to read down through all of the fine print to find these things – this is a major scandal as far as I can tell!
Good luck!