You would be correct if E85 was 85% gasoline and 15% ethanol. I believe, however, that E85 (”Ethanol 85″) is 85% ETHANOL and 15% gasoline. The 15% gasoline helps vehicles start in cold weather where conventional ethanol would not.

I found this government web site, which shows the fuel economy for the 2008 vehicles.

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/FEG2008.pdf On page 23 (page 25 in the pdf file) it lists the expected fuel milage for vehicles using E85 fuel (85% gasoline and 15% ethanol), and the expected fuel milage for the same vehicles using gasoline without ethanol.

The expected milage of any one of these vehicles is so much greater using Gasoline than the E85 ethanol that it offsets all possible benefits of using the ethanol fuel. For example the first vehicle on the page is a Chrysler Sebring Convertible with a 2.7 V-6 engine and automatic transmission, it gets 18 MPG city and 26MPG highway on Gasoline and 13 MPG city and 19 MPG highway on E85 ethanol fuel. Driving 1000 miles in the city on Gasoline this vehicle would use 55.55 gallons of Gasoline, while on E85 fuel it would use 76.92 gallons of E85. At 85% Gasoline and 15% ethanol, it has used 65.38 gallons of Gasoline AND 11.53 gallons of ethanol. This is 17.696% more gasoline that when it uses gasoline only. And it is 38.8469% more fuel that when it uses gasoline only. We could save 17% on our use of gasoline if we removed the ethanol and just burned straight gasoline. That doesn’t include the ethanol we are burning.

Using E85 instead of Gasoline this vehicle has increased total fuel usage by 9.83 gallons of Gasoline and 11.53 gallons of ethanol, increased the cost per gallon, depleted a valuable food source raising the price of food around the world, and increasing the amount of pollution in the atmosphere. But on the positive side it has increased the Oil Company’s profits and increased the local governments gasoline tax and sales tax revenues. The internet is a great tool for finding data, if the web site can be trusted. The next web site is also a government web site, so I think it is reliable. http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip_gasoline.html “Gasoline Production and Imports (Million Barrels per Day)” This shows that we used about 8.806 million barrels of gasoline per day in March of this year. At 55 gallons per barrel 8.806 x 55 = 484.33 million gallons of gasoline per day. That is 484,330,000 gallons per day. If we removed the ethanol and saved 17% on gasoline, we would need 82,336,100 fewer gallons every day. At $3.28 per gallon, the public could spend $270,062,400.00 per day on other things. This does not include the cost of the ethanol additive! We got the lead out, how do we get the Ethanol out?