A huge step forward for the Australian car market , Holden will release their new VE series II in October this year . The new Commodore will be the first locally built Flex Fuel vehicle on the market . It will be capable to run on E85 . The new Commodore features a new touchscreen entertainment system and E85 capable engines across the range. iPod connectivity, climate control, reversing camera, and Bluetooth hands-free and streaming are also standard. Three engines will be offered in the revised VE Commodore line-up: 3-litre and 3.6-litre V6s, and a 6-litre V8. The 3-litre V6 and 6-litre V8 have the capability to run on any blend of unleaded fuel running from standard and premium to ethanol blends, like the commonly available E10 to the fuel of the future E85. More details to be released in the lead up to the car’s public unveiling at this year’s Sydney Motor Show in October.

Coinciding with this Caltex will be selling E85 at a lot of there Service stations in the up and coming months . Please check our E85 locator for details. Your other optionratherthan buying a new Commodore straight away is to convert your current vehicle to run on E85 using one of our E85 conversion kits .

Caltex has now launched a high ethanol-based fuel designed for use in Holden’s VE Series II Commodore flex-fuel vehicles to be released later this year.”This move by Caltex is an important step in the development of a first generation biofuels market in Australia and will help pave the way for sustainable, lower cost second generation biofuels in the future.”

Bio E-Flex is part of our strategy to provide transport fuels beyond the traditional fuel mix, reflecting our commitment to addressing the issues of climate change and energy security.With the addition of Bio E-Flex, Caltex will be offering its customer a wide range of alternative fuels that also includes Bio E10 Unleaded, a range of biodiesel blends and LPG autogas .

Bio E-Flex is the result of a partnership with Holden which will later this year launch Australia’s first locally produced passenger vehicles capable of using a high ethanol blend fuel, the Commodore VE Series II flex-fuel range.

Caltex’s Bio E-Flex will be Holden’s recommended fuel and the new vehicles will also be able to use Bio E10 Unleaded, Vortex 95, Vortex 98, or any combination of these fuels.

“We welcome the leadership shown by the Victorian Government and our partner Holden,” Mr Topham said. “Important steps have been taken towards the development of a biofuels industry in Victoria, and we thank Minister Allan for her support and participation in our event today.”

Caltex will start selling Bio E-Flex in Melbourne in September and will have Bio E-Flex available in more than 30 service stations in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra by the end of October, increasing to 100 metropolitan and regional locations in 2011.

Bio E-Flex is suitable only for flex-fuel vehicles, such as vehicles in the Holden Commodore VE Series II range. Most new and many older cars, SUVs and light commercial vehicles can use E10 which is available at about 400 Caltex service stations in NSW, the ACT and Queensland . Look at our ” Bowser Locator ” to see a full list of these E85 service stations.

A growing number of ethanol-focused new cars, including the Series II update of the Holden Commodore in October, has sparked an E85 push in Australia. Caltex has just committed to install E85 ethanol pumps at 100 service stations in a little over 12 months, becoming the first mainstream fuel company to make a move on E85.It will begin the roll-out with 30 metropolitan and regional stations in time for the arrival of the VEII, joining about 400 stations which currently sell E10 fuel. The E85 fuel – already used in V8 Supercar racing as part of a green push – is made to a world standard and 70-85 per cent ethanol.

In contrast, E10 has only 10 per cent ethanol content. The difference with ethanol is that it is an alcohol fuel made from plant material and not a petroleum-based fossil fuel. But the arrival of E85 at Caltex pumps is not the end of the ethanol story, as GM Holden and Caltex are also part of a six-way consortium – with Veolia, Mitsui, Coskata and the Victorian government – which plans to begin making ethanol fuel in Australia from rubbish.

Coskata announced plans to create ethanol-from-waste fuel in the USA more than 18 months ago and was quickly joined in a partnership by General Motors, which is the world’s largest producer of flex-fuel vehicles capable of running on E85 fuels. The Australia deal is likely to see a plant built in Victoria to manufacture second-generation ethanol fuel, a move which overcomes the ‘food for fuel’ debate in the USA where corn stock is the base material for E85.

Convert a Holley 750 double-pumper to run on E85

Holley E85 Conversion kits available from Ethanol Performance Australia

For the general public, E85 is seen as a home-grown (i.e., not imported) alternative to petrol, one that may or may not cost less and run cleaner than good old-fashioned petrol, depending on who you ask. Performance enthusiasts, have latched onto E85 (which is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent petrol) as a low-buck, high-octane alternative to high-priced premium gas or race fuel. But what does it take to make a carb E85-ready? As it turns out, the process is surprisingly simple, as we found when we installed Quick Fuel Technology’s Billet Metering Block Conversion Kit, along with a few other necessities, in a Holley 750 double-pumper.

“The big selling points are E85’s 109+ octane rating and cheap price when compared to race fuel. Users span a broad range, consisting of performance enthusiasts, dirt track racers who are tired of the price of premium petrol, street/strip guys, and weekend bracket racers, among others. “You can run a higher compression motor and not have to pay top dollar for race fuel. It’s also a cooler-running fuel, so there’s power to be gained.”

So what does it take to make the switch to E85? In general, any carb and fuel system modifications must do two things: inhibit corrosion and increase fuel volume. On the first count, material choice is critical: brass floats as opposed to plastic, stainless steel needle/seat assemblies, and so on. On the second, QFT’s conversion kit instructions say that running E85 requires 25 to 30 percent more fuel than petrol , which in turn requires increasing the flow in all areas of the carburettor. And those two things, along with the necessary jetting changes, are exactly what the Billet Metering Block Conversion Kit and complementary parts accomplish.

While we can certainly hook you up with a purpose-built E85 carb-it’s got eight different part numbers available-the kit can work just as well for the die-hard DIY’er or someone who has an existing carb they want to use. “The process is pretty straightforward, If the kit is installed by someone who’s carb savvy, a conversion kit-equipped carb can run as good as a full carb.” Just how straightforward? The changeover took us less than an hour, including time to take pictures. Of course, being carb-savvy means that there’s also some tuning to do, and dialing the new setup in will certainly take more than an hour. The conversion itself, however, is surprisingly easy to accomplish-check it out.

Beyond The Mixer
Of course, converting to E85 means more than reconfiguring the carburettor-the rest of the fuel system must be tended to as well , you’ll need higher volume pumps and fuel lines. EPA recommends an AN-10 line from the tank to the regulator, and an AN-8 line from the regulator to the carb. All should be braided stainless or hardline; there should be no rubber at all. The regulator should be set at the carburetted norm of 6 to 61/2 pounds of fuel pressure, and the pump should be capable of producing 250 gph. Lastly, paper fuel filters are a no-no when running E85; go with steel micron in this area.

Convert a Holley 750 double-pumper to run on E85

OUR NEW AUSTRALIAN E85 CONVERSION KITS ARE READY

THEY WILL BE AVAILABLE IN OUR WEB SHOP IN SEPTEMBER

BE ONE OF THE FIRST TO CONVERT YOUR CURRENT CAR TO E85 AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE NEW CALTEX BIO E-FLEX E85 COMING TO A CALTEX SERVICE STATION NEAR YOU .

SAVE MONEY , REDUCE CO2EMISSIONAND GAIN PERFORMANCE

Australia’s first grains-to-ethanol plant at Dalby on the Darling Downs in southern Queensland has gone into voluntary administration. The owners of the Dalby Bio-Refinery went into administration on Friday and creditors have now appointed Ernst and Young to review the business.

Receiver Adam Nikitins says the bio-refinery owes more than $80 million to creditors. “The current strategy is to certainly continue operations at the plant – there are no planned redundancies.”

The plant began production only 18 months ago, converting local sorghum crops into ethanol. The Western Downs Mayor Ray Brown says the announcement has come as a surprise. “Our understanding earlier this year was that it was quite financial.”

Ernst and Young says it is preparing the business for a possible sale later this year.

Coskata was out here about a year ago canvassing prospective investors in a local plant employing the company’s ’second generation’ ethanol production technology. At the time, according to Coskata and its automotive partner Holden, the Victorian government showed strong interest in being involved and actively introduced Coskata’s representative, Wes Bolsen, to a number of potential investors in the scheme.

So the news from Holden today, that a consortium has been formed and the Victorian government is involved, is less surprising than that ‘Big Oil’ stalwart, Caltex is one of the other participants — although companies such as Caltex and BP are reinventing themselves in the 21st Century as energy providers, rather than oil suppliers.

Coskata has a strong tie to GM in the US, so Holden’s local involvement was a given. The local manufacturer is committed to building cars that will run on the E85 blended fuel in the near future. In fact, Holden’s Energy and Environment Director, Richard Marshall announced in the company’s press release today that locally-built E85-capable cars would hit the road before the end of this year.

“Our vision is that this technology will, in time, cut Australias dependence on petrol by up to 30 per cent and make a major contribution to sustainable motoring and greenhouse gas reduction,” Marshall said.

“We’ve always said we’d take a leadership position on biofuels, and provide the vehicles to do that. We’re committed to having locally built Holden cars capable of running on E85 in the market by 2010. It’s about designing and engineering vehicles for Australians, built by Australians, using Australian fuel alternatives.”

Much of the biofuel technology has already been developed by GM divisions in the US and it’s relatively cheap and easily implemented in a production setting. The principal advantage to using E85 to burn in internal combustion engines is that it’s almost carbon-neutral and the Coskata method offers further environmental gains by producing the ethanol from waste products, not food crops as the first-generation production methods do.

Marshall has previously told the Carsales Network that the 15 per cent petrol content in E85 ensures easy cold-weather starting, but in a milder climate such as Australia, it’s conceivable that cars could run on 100 per cent ethanol, making the country largely self-reliant for the fuel to power its petrol-engined road transport.

While ethanol in cars has zero profile in Australia currently, GM alone has built 3.5 million vehicles that will run on E85 in the US. Ford and Chrysler are also marketing flex-fuel cars in America.

Caltex’s involvement in the consortium is to ensure that these cars (and other E85-capable vehicles already on the road) will be resupplied with the petrol/ethanol mix through up to 30 retail outlets in metropolitan and regional areas. The plan from there, according to Caltex Australia’s General Manager Marketing, Andy Walz, is for the initial 30 outlets to expand to 100 within 12 months of commencing operations.

“Caltex’s expansion into this new fuel and participation in the consortium is part of our ongoing commitment to biofuels and tackling climate change, which fits well with a strategy of providing energy beyond the traditional fuel mix,” Walz said in the joint press release.

“Caltex already has about 400 service stations that sell E10 and a growing biodiesel market. We believe the biofuels industry has a vital role in a sustainable transport fuels future and that biofuels are good business opportunity for Caltex.”

As part of the implementation of the energy content based taxation of all fuels originally announced in the 2003-04 Budget of the Howard Government, the Rudd Government has now announced a new staged phasing in of the regime to address the sudden loss in the relative tax advantage of domestic ethanol compared to imported ethanol that would have occurred under the policy announced by the previous Government.

The Government believes that these initiatives will provide the fuel industry and fuel users with certainty as to the future direction of fuel tax policy so that they have confidence to make future investment decisions and consumption choices. To allow the alternative fuels industries time to adjust, effective excise will be phased in over the period beginning 1 July 2011 and ending 1 July 2015. In addition, the Rudd Government was concerned to ensure that, as part of these new arrangements, the domestic ethanol industry would benefit from an appropriate transition period to the arrangements announced in 2004-05, which the Rudd Government believed was absent from the previous Government’s approach.

To achieve this, imported ethanol will face a more gradual decline in excise equivalent customs duty over the transition period compared to the previously announced measure.

As a result of the 2004-05 reforms, alternative fuels, namely the biofuels, ethanol and biodiesel, and the gaseous fuels including liquefied petroleum gas, liquefied natural gas and compressed natural gas, will be brought fully into the tax system by being placed into one of the following three energy content bands:

• high (energy content greater than 30 megajoules per litre, or per cubic metre in the case of compressed natural gas) this band includes biodiesel
• medium (between 20 and 30 megajoules per litre) this band includes ethanol; or
• low (less than 20 megajoules per litre).

Effective excise will be phased in for alternative fuels from 1 July 2011, until 1 July 2015. At the end of the transition period, alternative fuels will benefit from a 50 per cent reduction of their full energy content tax rate.

The sudden loss in the relative tax advantage of domestic ethanol compared to imported ethanol that would have occurred under the policy announced by the previous Government will be addressed. Entitlement to the Energy Grants (Cleaner Fuels) Scheme will be removed for ethanol and direct subsidies will be provided to domestic producers and phased down over the transition period. This measure will result in revenue of $275 million over the forward estimates.

The Government has announced that it will consult extensively with key stakeholders on the implementation details of this important policy. This consultation will cover the implementation of support for the domestic ethanol industry, whether offsetting grants are the best mechanism to phase in effective excise over the transitional period for the biofuels and the gaseous fuels, and how to determine the appropriate taxation point for the gaseous fuels.