Are you interested in using E85 but you’re not sure where to find E85 stations? Have you ever wondered about cost per mile and emissions comparing E85 to gasoline? If so, Chenguang Wang, who is working on a doctorate in environmental and resource economics at Michigan State University, has an app for you. It’s called E85 Tracker and it’s available on iTunes. (It’s free and ad free as well, Wang says.) A You Tube video of less than 2 minutes long can give you more details. 

Wang developed the app because a friend of hers drives a flex-fuel vehicle but never fueled up with E85 because she thought it was expensive. However, Wang found, on a per-mile basis, in certain areas of Indiana and Michigan E85 was a cheaper option.

Unlike existing E85 apps, which only show drivers the location of E85 pumps, this app can help drivers track what they fuel up with, the cost and their emissions over time. The driver enters fuel type, cost and the odometer for each fill up and the app calculates per mile cost and emissions savings, comparing the use of E85 and regular gas. A future goal is to simplify the process by allowing app users to simply take photos at the gas station (like this and this) to extract the information. “But this goal relies on how much support I get,” she said, adding that so far downloads have been lower than she hoped for. As of July 28, it had been downloaded 222 times. In addition, she has been approached by the CEO of Fuelzee, an app to help drivers find the cheapest gas. 

Wang believes in green energy, she told me. She also believes the U.S. EPA isn’t providing enough support to ethanol producers in reference to the FFV weighting factor. For model year 2015 cars and older, the EPA assumed a 0.5 weighing factor, in other words, that FFVs will save 50 percent emissions due to E85 use. However, for cars 2016 and never, the EPA has proposed changing the weighting factor to 0.2, reducing the emission subsidy for car manufacturers.

I checked with Brain Jennings, executive vice president of the American Coalition for Ethanol on this and it looks like this has yet to be finalized. "It is true that 0.2 has been discussed, but several groups, including ACE and automakers, are working to provide EPA a compelling case for a more meaningful factor," he said, 

Wang believes that if enough drivers use her E85 Tracker App the data could be used to help calculate the weighting factor, which she feels should be greater than 0.2. “If the hypothesis can be tested and proved, the evidence may be used by ethanol associations, ethanol producers, and FFV car manufacturers,” she said.

It will also help identify factors that deter drivers from using E85. “For example, high E85 price is likely to reduce E85 usage and therefore leads to a low weighting factor,” she said. “Another example, distance to the E85 stations is negatively correlated with E85 usage and therefore leads to a low weighting factor.”

 Wang plans to complete her doctorate in December and will be looking for a job as a research economist at a university or an institution researching green energy and climate change. I wish her good luck in her career and also in encouraging drivers to download and use her E85 app.