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The subject of ethanol or E85 fuel (85 percent ethanol, 15 percent gasoline) has become a hot topic for discussion in the automotive world as of late. Although ethanol has been used as a fuel source for vehicles in Europe and South America for many years now, it’s quickly catching on in North America, and has become an alternative source of fuel explored by several automakers including Saab, Volvo, General Motors, Chrysler and Ford. And like the gasoline-electric powertrain, E85 has broken into the performance field; just last week, an E85-powered Cobalt broke a land speed record at Bonneville Salt Flats, and Lotus has now created a one-off E85-powered version of its Exige road-racer.

As is widely known, E85 is a very potent fuel - much more so than standard pump gasoline. Saab has demonstrated this on several occasions with its BioPower series of vehicles (9-3, 9-5), which produce more power when running on the biomass-derived alcohol fuel than on gasoline. The Exige 265E (E for Ethanol) also has similar gains in performance when running on E85. With E85 in the tank, the Exige produces 264 horsepower and 185 lb-ft of torque, up 46 horsepower and 25 lb-ft of torque, which is up 21-percent and 16-percent respectively over the standard gasoline-powered cars. And, given that the Exige weighs a paltry 930 kilograms (2,050 lbs) to begin with, the 265E has a power to weight ratio of 283 hp/tonne.

Like most other E85 vehicles, the Exige 265E is very closely related to its fossil-fuel burning relative, the standard Exige. It still uses the Toyota-sourced 2ZZ VVTL-I engine, although changes have been made to the engine management system, two additional fuel injectors have been added at the supercharger inlet for better fuel flow under high pressure, and the fuel line system has been improved to withstand the E85 fuel. But when it comes down to being a high-performance sports machine, the 265E’s substantial gains in power allow the Exige to deliver supercar levels of performance. Zero to 96 km/h (60 mph) is dispatched in 3.88 seconds, and 160 km/h (100 mph) from a standstill in 9.2 seconds. Top speed is rated at 254 km/h (158 mph). That makes the Exige 265E the world’s quickest road-legal E85 car.

Though the Exige 265E is merely a one-off demonstrator vehicle, Lotus has expressed that it is exploring the different pathways of E85 fuels. The next phase for this road-going experiment is to add a calibrator to the fuel system to give it fuel flexibility that most other production E85 vehicles have. Currently, the car is only capable of running on E85; this new device would allow it to run on a variety of different biomass fuels (bio-methanol, bio-butanol), as well as straight gasoline.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 at 4:11 pm and is filed under Ethanol, Green, Lotus, Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.