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Ethanol blended with gasoline can be used to power a "flex-fueled" car

Mechanical Engineering

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Ethanol blended with gasoline can be used to power a "flex-fueled" car. one particular blend that is gaining in popularity is E85, which is 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. E85 is 80% cleaner burning than gasoline alone, and it reduces our dependency on foreign oil. But a flex-fueled car costs $100,000 more than a conventional gasoline-fueled car. Additionally, E85 fuel gets 10% less miles per gallon than a conventional automobile. Consider a 100% gasoline-fueled car that average 30 miles per gallon. The E85-fueled average about 27nmiles per galloon. If either car will be driven 81,000 miles before being traded in , how much will the E85 fuel have to cost (per gallon) to make the flex-fueled car as economically attractive as a conventional gasoline-fueled car? Gasoline costs $2.89 per gallon. Work this problem without considering the time value of money.