E85 is $1.77 in NW mn at the cenex station. Lowest price in nation. Woohoo.
Let’s all go out and buy Suburbans!
And then let’s all drive to Minnesota to gas up. 
I’ve often done the math about driving down to tax-free VA for the $.50/gallon savings. It never quite makes sense, even buying 300 gallons at a time. (Then there’s that whole “unplacarded HAZMAT” issue…)
But yeah, driving N/S along the east coast, always top up driving through VA.
Hmmm, like I said, I never paid much attention to the gas prices. Guess I should have when I was in VA. Can’t recall if I even filled up there or not but NY was not kind to me.
@meanjoe, reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer and Newman collect a postal truckload of empty bottles and drive to another state to collect the bottle deposits…
I think I live a lot closer to VA than @meanjoe75fan, and I would not drive to VA for gas either. If I happen to go there anyway, I do make sure to buy gas.
And concerning socialist gas pricing, I am joking, but it seems strange that the only goods in town with prices that are directly related to household income are gas/diesel. Not food, not clothing, not household goods - nothing. I know that it is not that simple. There may be differences in leasing costs, and who would drive into my neighborhood to buy gas when they can get it for 20 cents less in their own area? It’s just one of those little differences if marketing that I don’t understand.
E85
useless to me
^Actually a lot of goods are MORE expensive for ghetto-dwellers. They know a large portion of their clientele is not mobile (no car), so they can safely disregard competition in the next town over. Also, beer/cigs seem to do a lot better in poorer areas…smoking, in particular, seems a "poor man’s vice."
And then, there’s the high, high cost of buying appliances/housing without cash or decent credit…about 100% markup at a “rent to own” store on a fridge, last time I checked.
^ As some economists have noted, it costs a lot to be poor. :-{
As Bruce Williams used to say: “work with the classes, live with the masses, but work with the masses, live with the classes”. In other words if you’ve got an exclusive business in a high class area, you are unlikely to be able to afford to live in that area. On the other hand, there are additional expenses in a poor area plus maybe fewer sales that need to cover the overhead. As far as rent to own, I suspect they have a high default rate to cover for but the check cashing business to me is a pure usury business that should be put out of business.
On the other hand again, a friend came back from Red Cross duty from Katrina, handing out debit cards. Most folks there didn’t know what a debit card was, never had a bank account, never had a checking account, houses passed down from generation to generation, no insurance, etc. Just a total lack of what normally would be considered ordinary financial knowledge for survival. Don’t know what to make of that in this day and age with free education but if you don’t have a car, don’t use a bank, don’t insure yourself, your options are indeed limited for where and how you trade. Not much hope for getting out of the rut.
I wonder how many people are going to be shoving 1.77 E85 into vehicles not designed for it…
I’d be happy to sell them an additive for only $35 for a 12-oz. bottle… {
I’d do it if I had a carb’d vehicle and had the fuel lines replaced with EtOH-resistant rubber. Jet for the richer stoich and enjoy the 105 octane!
The vexing thing about E85 is it’s “up to 85%,” with final concentrations (and octane) not guaranteed. If I had a “play” car, it’d be fun to shave the head and/or up the boost and take full advantage of the “poor man’s racing gas” I had ready access to! I imagine–ethanol being oxygenated fuel–you’d up the max HP just by using it in a tuned engine, much like methanol ups the HP due to the oxygen being brought in with the fuel.
A local guy around here is into Ethanol big time. He’s a farmer into racing and high speed in general. Even Ford Motor Company is heavily associated with him because of the corn factor.
One of his Mustangs has records at Bonneville (about 255 MPH) while running on E85 and his diesel pickup has records for 180 and above on corn oil.
The Mustang was shredded during a later run after going airborne at about 260 MPH.
Wasn’t NASCAR talking about going to E85?
Or perhaps F1?
@ok4450 , sounds like you’re talking about this guy:
State law about selling gas for less than cost and big vs small dealers and so on. But am not sure why it’s ok to sell e85 for $1.77 and station 10 miles away has it for $2.20. Yes, e85 is not “gas”, it’s ethanol. Maybe the dept of alcohol sales says its ok to charge any price they want. It was $1 below gas this summer. Now it’s 50 cents.
“E85 is $1.77 in NW mn…”
This is equivalent to about $2.53 for regular. I just tanked up for $2.56 (regular).
NASCAR uses E15.
Isn’t it equivalent to $2.41?
BTU(E10)/Btu(E85)=1.36 $1.77*1.36=$2.407Then consider that a car using E85 optimally can run greater compression/more timing, and likely get more out of the gas than is possible with RUL.