Cost of driving with E10 and 98E5

For some reason, the new fuel mix E10 has not become as popular as predicted. It is a new product and nobody wants to let fuel companies use their car for testing. Despite assurances that the fuel is good and can be used on cars which are on the 'E10 compatible vehicles list', many people prefer to use the slightly more expensive 98E5. Maybe they suspect that the list is not accurate (as there has been several cars added/removed on the list already) or that any damage caused by the fuel will be diffucult to prove, and the car owner will have to pay the repairs themselves and they can't shift the costs to those who sold them the defective fuel and told them it is safe to use on their car.


One finnish tabloid newspaper, iltalehti has an article (in finnish) about their quick, not very accurate test drive. They drove a stretch of about 350km twice, once using E10 and the return trip using 98E5. Most of the trip was on quiet roads, following speed limits. They found out that using the more expensive 98E5 was cheaper in the end than the E10 fuel. The Ford Mondeo with 1,6l engine used 6,25 liters/100km of 98E5 and 6,68 liters/100km. The cost of using E10 was about 3,5% higher than 98E5.

(Source: iltalehti) Check the costs!

The three lines below the cars are: fuel consumption reported by car computer, measured consumption, cost per 100km. The final cost is pretty much the same, 10€ vs 10,35€ per 100km. That's ten cents per km, on fuel alone.