Hard to put a timing on it!

The tide is running against E5 because government policy moved to replace it with E10 3 years ago.  (In doing so they were late compared with the rest of the world.)  Plus there are other strong forces pushing the world away from petrol,

E10 is supposed to be cheaper than E5 so expect tax attacks intended to discourage people buying it in future. Politics.

Commercially, likely as sales drop that E5 pumps will disappear from forecourts, making buying it ever more difficult in the future.   I guess this will be done station by station – probably when their tanks are replaced (they last 10 to 20years), earlier if the garage decides there’s no profit in E5.

Lack of profit from E5 across the board might accelerate the decline faster than expected.  Cars made after 2011 should all run on E10, potentially making E5 a specialist fuel sold only to fuel old-cars, who are a minority.   I believe the average life of a UK car is about 15 years,  meaning that half the cars on the road in 2011 will have been replaced by 2026.   Most motorists don’t buy E5.

The rise, or not, or electric adds another dimension.  If the country’s economy is weak and electric cars stay expensive, then many car owners will keep their old-bangers going for longer, even if the cost of E5 is painful.   This will tend to keep the market for E5 healthy for longer.  On the other hand, the cost of electric cars is dropping, with more to come, and the economy is showing green-shoots at the moment.  Thus the switch to electric and the end of garage forecourts could come sooner rather than later.

All in all I wouldn’t buy a car that can’t run on E10 now.   I think in the 5 to 15 year timescale, finding E5 is going to get difficult, at least for ordinary motoring.  However, 5 to 15 years out of a car might be enough to meet the needs of many older drivers : the average age we stop driving in the UK is 82.

Dave

SOD, If the OP’s second posting is indeed from the new vehicles literature, then your statement/posting is irrelevant, as if you read it, it states that ethanol mixes of no more than 10% can be used!

My car states ( Skoda Octavia 2017) on the filler cap to only use E5, however when I bought it I asked a good friend who is an experienced mechanic and works for a VAG/Skoda main dealer and he stated E10 would do no harm and most get run on it, and also about Ethanol and Methanol, so i’ve used that for the last 30.000 miles and nothing has melted or blown up. Not recommending or wishing to cause an argument, just this is what I’ve done with no apparent ill effects.

Dave (cheapskate!)

Michael, is it new or secondhand?

I was interested to see that the Gov.uk site that tells you if your car can run on E10 only lists current production models for Suzuki. Yet my Suburu which I run on E5 for more for the octane says that any of their cars since 1991 will be OK on E10.

I have run my Imprezzas on Super since 1997 and although it costs more it is not so bad given the limited miles that I do which is just as well as I may only get 20mpg if enjoying myself.

No doubt someone is trying to work out how to get the ethanol out of E10 so you finish up with proper petrol and very strong booze.

Many moons ago we got an enquiry whether our gas turbines would run on cane alcohol, which is I think pretty strong ethanol. It was surprisingly easy to get the necessary paperwork to have a bonded store, and the alcohol itself was stupidly cheap. And yes, the turbine ran fine. We didn’t drink the spirit, I think it had been adulterated with some noxious chemical.

I’ve been running my car on E5 for quite some time but I saw something recently that said it’s a waste of time if you can run E10 (I can) in your car. I need to top up soon so I was planning on filling up with E10 unless someone can persuade me otherwise?

Duncan

Almost all ethanol is adulterated with something. It is very difficult to remove the small amount of water to get 100% ethanol. You have to use concentrated sulphuric acid.

Mind you, some of the adulterants produce very nice drinks, pass the gin and tonic please.

JA

For land use the issue with Ethanol and Methanol in fuel is not combustion it is seals and other elastomers / plastics in the system. A problem with seldom used vehicles is their absorbsion of moisture from the air which can then cause corrosion.
There has been a lot of work on this for aircraft use and even then there have been surprises. Amateur built aircraft that were running fine on MOGAS (car fuel) but had to go back to AVGAS (100 octane leaded) because of the Ethanol content in modern MOGAS, suffered from fuel tank degradation and blocked fuel lines.

Robert.