I bought my truck used a few years back. It has a flex-fuel badge and takes both regular and high-ethanol E85 gasoline. But I’ve never been able to find E85 around here, even though I’ve seen it at stations in the United States. Is it available in Canada? If not, why not? – Brent, Oshawa, Ont.
Unless you live in British Columbia, you won’t have much flexibility with your flex-fuel vehicle, which is designed to run on regular gasoline or blends containing up to 85 per cent ethanol.
The U.S. has thousands of stations that offer E85. Canada has four – and they’re all in B.C., according to a biofuels industry association.
“It’s pretty remarkable, but that’s it for Canada – just those four stations, as far as I know,” said Ian Thomson, president of Advanced Biofuels Canada, an industry association. “The Americans have had policies that have incented the use of biofuels to a far greater extent than they have been incented in Canada.”
Ethanol is a form of alcohol that can be made from plant matter – for instance, corn, wheat, sugar cane and wood chips. It’s generally considered greener than gasoline because it’s renewable – and, even though making and burning it produces CO2, the crops grown to make it absorb CO2.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, E85 fuel can contain anywhere from 51 to 83 per cent ethanol. In Canada, it can have up to 85 per cent, Thomson said.
Not all vehicles can run on flex fuel, so it helps to know whether yours can. Some vehicles have badges that say flex-fuel, some sport a yellow gas cap or a sticker next to the gas cap – in others, you have to check the owner’s manual.
Until model year 2015, U.S. automakers could get credits under the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards by building flex-fuel vehicles. Most were bigger trucks and SUVs that weren’t actually fuel efficient. Automakers could use the credits to improve the fuel efficiency ratings of their entire fleets without actually making the fleets more fuel efficient. Canada aligned with the U.S. in offering those credits.
“A policy like that only works if you can get [E85] into those vehicles,” Thomson said.
Companies are making fewer flex-fuel vehicles now than a decade ago. Natural Resources Canada’s (NRCan) website shows 14 vehicles that take flex fuel for the 2022 model year – mostly trucks from General Motors and Ford. But for the 2012 model year, companies offered 104 flex-fuel vehicles here, including sedans and SUVs.
Limited availability?
So, how do you find it? Not easily.
An NRCan search tool shows zero stations in Canada offering E85. Wikipedia mentions four stations in Ontario selling it in 2008 – they don’t now.
According to a private Facebook group that tracks E85 availability in B.C., the four stations are in Nanaimo, Aldergrove, New Westminster and Kelowna.
“It’s been an afterthought in Canada. I don’t expect that to change much in the years ahead unless there’s a government mandate” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis with GasBuddy. “Canada does not have the infrastructure. Ethanol has to be trucked – you can’t put it in a pipeline because it’s too corrosive – and most of it comes from [the United States].”
In the United States, policies encourage gas stations to sell gasoline with more ethanol, including E15 (15-per-cent ethanol), E25 and E85, Thomson said. Neither E15 or E25 is available in Canada.
“Canada and U.S. both have a renewable fuel standard, but Canada’s is pretty tepid, Thomson said.
It gets complicated, but the United States also has a stronger system of credits that makes ethanol cheaper than gasoline for independent gas stations, Thomson said.
“[Stations] can make more margin on ethanol and they can also provide that ethanol to motorists for considerably less money than they would pay for [gasoline],” Thomson said.
The United States also has more independent refiners and retailers than Canada – here, the big oil companies own most stations.
“There are huge independent gasoline chains in the States that have 500 or 600 gas stations,” Thomson said. “They’re not a Shell, so they can sell anybody’s gasoline.”
American gas stations also get funds to upgrade their pumps and tanks so they can sell gasoline with a higher ethanol content, Thomson said.
In B.C., the Nanaimo and Aldergrove stations got funding from the provincial government to convert equipment to handle E85, Thomson said.
Cheaper than regular gas?
In much of Canada, the gas you’re buying usually has some ethanol in it.
Since 2010, Ottawa has required companies to sell gasoline with at least 5 per cent ethanol, though many fuel suppliers slightly exceed that.
There’s an exemption in the Atlantic provinces, the territories and Northern Quebec. Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C. have their own rules and require gas to be anywhere from 5 to 10 per cent ethanol.
While the maximum amount of ethanol allowed in regular gas is 15 per cent, the average blend contains 6 to 7 per cent, NRCan said.
In the United States, the average amount of ethanol is about 10 per cent, Thomson said.
In the United States last week, E85 was nearly 20 per cent cheaper, on average, than regular gas – US$3.21 a gallon for E85 ($1.08 per litre) compared to US$4.05 ($1.36 per litre) for E10.
In Canada, it varies. GasBuddy, a site that shows local gas prices, doesn’t show E85 prices for Canadian stations. The stations wouldn’t give gas prices over the phone.
A photo posted to the B.C. E85 Facebook group on April 20 showed E85 at $1.46 a litre and regular gasoline at nearly $1.98 a litre – a nearly 52-cent-per-litre difference – at the Aldergrove station.
At another station in New Westminster, a member said E85 was priced the same as mid-grade gasoline (89 octane).
If you run E85 in your flex-fuel vehicle, you’ll get worse gas mileage because ethanol is less energy-dense than gasoline, Thomson said.
“If you’re driving 100-per-cent ethanol, you would be losing about 33 per cent of your mileage,” Thomson said.
Another option that’s available in the United States but not in Canada is E15. You don’t need a flex-fuel vehicle to use E15 – it can run in most vehicles built after 2001.
Normally, E15 is banned from June to September in the United States because of air pollution concerns, but President Joe Biden announced earlier this month he’d allow stations to sell it this summer to help lower gas prices.
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