Automakers Push for Higher Octane to Meet Fuel Economy Standards

[Bru]

CARS.COM — As cars get more efficient, fuel could become costlier for consumers. Automakers are pushing for the U.S. to embrace higher-octane gasoline to help meet the increasingly stringent federal fuel economy and carbon-emissions standards by the 2025 deadline. While higher octane can allow higher efficiency, it also means higher prices.

Related: Why Is Premium Gas So Expensive?

Powertrain executives from GM, Ford, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Honda made the plea at this week's SAE 2016 World Congress & Exhibition in Detroit, according to Automotive News. During a panel discussion on future engine and transmission technology, the automakers agreed that an elevated octane standard of about 95 would be needed to meet standards set forth by federal corporate average fuel economy regulations, the trade journal reported.

For the most part U.S. gas has an octane range from 87 for regular unleaded gas to 93 for premium. Higher-compression engines that require premium fuel generally run more efficiently and have lower carbon emissions than those that burn regular gas. Increased use of turbocharging and direct injection have efficiently boosted horsepower in smaller engines, but automakers say it will be difficult to further boost power without raising the octane level, Automotive News stated.

Manufacturers addressing the topic in Detroit this week said they would need an octane of 95 on the Anti-Knock Index used in North America. That's compared with the European Research Octane Number scale, which would rate the same fuel at an octane of 100, Automotive News stated. For consumers, that will mean higher prices at the pump, as premium gas generally runs about 50 cents a gallon more than regular.

Get the full story Automotive News (subscription required), here.

Read more at https://www.cars.com/articles/autom...-standards-1420684421731/#eKmhs64gmyjmvSBg.99

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[Mook]

 

[Gone_2022]

lol article states Premium is generally 50 cents higher than regular......... thats a LOLZ moment.

 

[Bru]

That's the national average.

 

[Chester Copperpot]

As long as fucking ethanol blend becomes a thing of the past.

 

[OffshoreDrilling]

I already buy it anyways, but premium prices will go up because: fuck you.

 

[Intel]

isnt premium only expensive because they make way less of it so effiencies of scale aren't as good?

 

[Thirdgen89GTA]

isnt premium only expensive because they make way less of it so effiencies of scale aren't as good?

I know thats one of the reasons for it.

 

[Gone_2022]

screw it. Buy a Tesla and make more power than most sports and exotics.... Octane not required

 

[Thirdgen89GTA]

screw it. Buy a Tesla and make more power than most sports and exotics.... Octane not required

That is true. Electricity is electricity.

Except when its voltage and amperage differ. But the chargers take care of that for you.

 

[SHARKBITEATTACK]

screw it. Buy a Tesla and make more power than most sports and exotics.... Octane not required

After driving a P85D I'm almost convinced there is nothing else that can accelerate harder on the street. Elon Musk wanted the car to match the performance of a McLaren F1 and I'd say as far as 1/4 mi acceleration goes he accomplished that. At 5000lbs tho a P90D or P100D won't exactly be "carving corners" like other sports cars

 

[Gone_2022]

After driving a P85D I'm almost convinced there is nothing else that can accelerate harder on the street. Elon Musk wanted the car to match the performance of a McLaren F1 and I'd say as far as 1/4 mi acceleration goes he accomplished that. At 5000lbs tho a P90D or P100D won't exactly be "carving corners" like other sports cars

agreed. When I test drove one at the oak brook store the guy was laughing and kept telling me to hit the accelerator. I would put it down like half way and think I was flooring the car. Finally I actually put it all the way down when merging and I actually shouted out Holy Fuck.

He laughed pretty much the rest of the trip lol

 

[Gone_2022]

I am slightly confused on the article however. It states that they want to raise the Octane limit to meet the emission standards..... I thought they were held to a corporate average fuel economy? or "CAFE"

So basically they are allowed to have a corvette that averages 20 mpg...... and it is offset by a Chevy Volt that has 99MPG averages.

Am I wrong?

 

[Intel]

To meet the standards in 10 years they need to run higher compression/boost = more octane = cleaner emissions.

 

[SHARKBITEATTACK]

lol I dropped the F-bomb as well. Here's how I describe accelerating in a Tesla when u floor it

 

[Gone_2022]

The wife was less than pleased with my acceleration tests in the Tesla. lol I was told it is unnecessary and I do not need it lol

 

[SHARKBITEATTACK]

This is interesting. I'd like to learn more about this from a chemist or someone that knows fuels, thermodynamics etc. We HAD high octane leaded fuels back 40+ years ago but they had their share of environmental problems and wouldn't work with catalytic converters. So then we started blending corn alcohol with fuels to raise the octane level which is still the norm today. Seems like E85 would solve our problem for high octane clean burning fuels... if only there were enough corn in the country for everyone to burn E85 that is. (Food vs Fuel debate). I guess we either need an alternative bio-fuel from algae or sugar OR some synthetic wizardry to enhance the octane of gasoline.

I'm kinda suprised we haven't seen any natural gas vehicles with the shale oil/fracking boom. NG is the cleanest fossil fuel out there and its very abundant. Too dangerous in a compressed form for a motor vehicle perhaps??

 

[Kaeghl]

510 horsepower jag xf as my fun car. Is crazy.
Tesla on insane mode.. one test drive, dear lord. if the gt-r is "godzilla" the tesla is "mechagodzilla"

lol I dropped the F-bomb as well. Here's how I describe accelerating in a Tesla when u floor it

 

[Primalzer]

This is interesting. I'd like to learn more about this from a chemist or someone that knows fuels, thermodynamics etc. We HAD high octane leaded fuels back 40+ years ago but they had their share of environmental problems and wouldn't work with catalytic converters. So then we started blending corn alcohol with fuels to raise the octane level which is still the norm today. Seems like E85 would solve our problem for high octane clean burning fuels... if only there were enough corn in the country for everyone to burn E85 that is. (Food vs Fuel debate). I guess we either need an alternative bio-fuel from algae or sugar OR some synthetic wizardry to enhance the octane of gasoline.

I'm kinda suprised we haven't seen any natural gas vehicles with the shale oil/fracking boom. NG is the cleanest fossil fuel out there and its very abundant. Too dangerous in a compressed form for a motor vehicle perhaps??

I don't know what the E85 comparison to regular E10 is compared to emissions, but E85 definitely loses at keast 10-15% in fuel economy in Flex Fuel vehicles (at least from my experience)...From my understanding, E85 does have a higher octane rating, but because ethanol has a lower power density, it takes more to meet the same performance as regular E10. Granted, maybe a properly tuned E85 system could match an E10 system, but I'm not that familiar with any of that.

 

[rz79]

My MIL has a p90 and the acceleration alone is worth the buy in

 

[Thirdgen89GTA]

510 horsepower jag xf as my fun car. Is crazy.
Tesla on insane mode.. one test drive, dear lord. if the gt-r is "godzilla" the tesla is "mechagodzilla"

When a Tesla P85D next to you floors it from a stop light.

 

[sickmint79]

This is interesting. I'd like to learn more about this from a chemist or someone that knows fuels, thermodynamics etc. We HAD high octane leaded fuels back 40+ years ago but they had their share of environmental problems and wouldn't work with catalytic converters. So then we started blending corn alcohol with fuels to raise the octane level which is still the norm today. Seems like E85 would solve our problem for high octane clean burning fuels... if only there were enough corn in the country for everyone to burn E85 that is. (Food vs Fuel debate). I guess we either need an alternative bio-fuel from algae or sugar OR some synthetic wizardry to enhance the octane of gasoline.

I'm kinda suprised we haven't seen any natural gas vehicles with the shale oil/fracking boom. NG is the cleanest fossil fuel out there and its very abundant. Too dangerous in a compressed form for a motor vehicle perhaps??

corn is the shittiest thing to make ethanol out of.

my speculation would be octane speaks to the anti-knock capabilities of a fuel but not energy density? so it may not have the same effect as raising octane other ways?

it's still probably environmentally shitty because corn really is that bad of a crop to make ethanol out of.

re: ng it's probably not as clean as you think, and there are cars in cali, but i believe the current plan is to turn it into hydrogen. use existing natural gas infrastructure and fueling stations; reform natural gas at this point of distribution into hydrogen. so basically you live your life like you do today, you just drive to shell and go to the hydrogen pump instead of the gasoline pump. the stuff is turned into hydrogen right there at the station. i believe japan is pretty all in on this.

 

[SHARKBITEATTACK]

corn is the shittiest thing to make ethanol out of.

my speculation would be octane speaks to the anti-knock capabilities of a fuel but not energy density? so it may not have the same effect as raising octane other ways?

it's still probably environmentally shitty because corn really is that bad of a crop to make ethanol out of.

re: ng it's probably not as clean as you think, and there are cars in cali, but i believe the current plan is to turn it into hydrogen. use existing natural gas infrastructure and fueling stations; reform natural gas at this point of distribution into hydrogen. so basically you live your life like you do today, you just drive to shell and go to the hydrogen pump instead of the gasoline pump. the stuff is turned into hydrogen right there at the station. i believe japan is pretty all in on this.

Yes a gallon of gasoline has more BTU's in it than a gallon of ethanol. Diesel has even more than gasoline. E85 has higher octane allowing for higher compression = efficiency. Think of it like this, a greater percentage of chemical energy gets transfered into mechanical energy with every combustion stroke. There's also the benefit of it burning cooler which gives you a slightly denser fuel charge. Perhaps someone who knows more or has actual experience with E85 can chime in.

NG is not the ultimatum but it would be a step forward. It's obviously clean enough for us to use in our homes for cooking and heating.

You have me confused about hydrogen. Are you talking about burning it in an engine or the fuel cell method?

 

[Stink Star]

I guess it all depends on what they are shooting for. If they are going for better MPG I don't see why they would need higher octane fuel as that doesn't really correlate to the MPG rating. But if they think raising the compression on engines will reduce hydrocarbons, Nox, or CO then that is a different story altogether.

 

[sickmint79]

Yes a gallon of gasoline has more BTU's in it than a gallon of ethanol. Diesel has even more than gasoline. E85 has higher octane allowing for higher compression = efficiency. Think of it like this, a greater percentage of chemical energy gets transfered into mechanical energy with every combustion stroke. There's also the benefit of it burning cooler which gives you a slightly denser fuel charge. Perhaps someone who knows more or has actual experience with E85 can chime in.

NG is not the ultimatum but it would be a step forward. It's obviously clean enough for us to use in our homes for cooking and heating.

You have me confused about hydrogen. Are you talking about burning it in an engine or the fuel cell method?

natural gas -> pipes to gas station -> reformation into hydrogen -> hydrogen fuel cell

1. leverages existing infrastructure
2. quick fill
3. not perfect - but better than where we are at

i don't disagree with this claims that electric is potentially the most green are absolutely is the most green - they just face the problem of actually being economically realistic and something real that people want to live with.

"don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good"

we can reduce our carbon footprint a lot with things like this, more turbos, camless tech, electric + gas hybrids, etc. - all without much of a sacrifice in how we use cars today. we could also try and use more bicycles/buses/etc.

longer term the self driving all electric fleet of ubers you summon when necessary while not actually owning a car yourself seems a reasonable goal/expectation of somewhere we'll eventually be in the future. you won't care about the worst part of electrics then (recharge) since that will simply be taken care of by proper fleet management.