Ethanol boosters target 'flex-fuel' car owners

[CShine]

Fuel at a promotional price of 85 cents a gallon sounds like a great deal. But will anyone show up? That's the question confronting purveyors of the ethanol-based fuel E85, which is selling at 1970s prices today only at a new E85 fueling station in Bennett.

About 40,000 vehicles in Colorado are made to run on either gasoline or ethanol. Many of the cars' owners, however, aren't aware of that fact.The vehicles carry the designation "flex fuel," indicating an engine that can take ethanol, gasoline or any combination of the two.

But knowledge of the vehicles' dual capability has been slow to circulate, to the chagrin of ethanol boosters.

"Most people, including auto dealers sometimes, don't even know about it," said Jared Fiel of the Colorado Corn Growers Association, a proponent of ethanol fuels that are made largely from corn.

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