US Car Makers Want To Make Premium Petrol The New Minimum
American car makers are pushing for a national switch from three petrol octane ratings to just one, in an attempt to gain extra fuel economy and lower their overall emissions.
General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler are ‘working with’ the US Council for Automotive Research to try to standardise 95 RON unleaded – the same standard used across Europe. Under the American system it’s currently known as 91-octane, because the US adds the Research Octane Number (RON) to the Motor Octane Number (MON) and divides the result by two.
The move would most likely involve shifting to the RON-only system used elsewhere in the world, standardising to 95-octane with different suppliers offering various grades of super-unleaded, from 97-99 RON.
Eliminating the lower grades of fuel would give consumers a three per cent fuel economy boost across the board, the car makers say, with a lower-than-three per cent increase in cost to the consumer. Fewer types of fuel to refine means cost savings for refineries, and engine makers could squeeze extra efficiency (and power) out of their motors with finer tuning, purely because they’d no longer need to be capable of running on the low-grade fuel.
Dan Nicholson, General Motors’ vice president of global propulsion systems, said:
“We have an opportunity to play a large role in offering consumers the most affordable option for fuel economy improvement and greenhouse gas reduction.
“We believe a higher efficiency gasoline solution with a higher Research Octane Number is very important to achieving this. USCAR research shows that 95 RON makes sense from the viewpoints of both refiners and fuel retailers.”
At present, 95 RON fuel in the US is at least 50 cents per gallon more expensive than the basic stuff. As such, there’s likely to be a fair amount of resistance among the public. American CTzens: would you be happy to make the switch, or do you already run your cars on the good stuff anyway?
Sources: Automotive News via Motor Authority
Comments
I built my engine to run cheap for a reason.
America is still a developing country with 91 octane fuel XD
Standard fuel in Europe is 95, costs 1€ and a few cents.
Are they just doing this to stifle Mazda’s new Skyactiv engine effectiveness?
The cost of investment will make this fairly expensive until the gasoline producers recoup their investment. It won’t be a short term recoup either, having to tool up for a different set of standards. I can hope it will go smoothly, but with most people using their cars as A to B machines, it makes me wonder if it would really be worth the investment when it seems like it will cut jobs/revenue for the company when they would want to keep their current profit margins.
Also, writing this when it’s currently $2.79 for 87 octane where I live doesn’t help, makes me not want to spend any more money than I’m burning at the pump.
but as stated, not needing to refine several types of fuel would lead to a price drop in high octane fuel, meaning it won’t be allot more expensive and would be few or no setbacks because of it. you could even tune your car to run leaner and get the same power to increase mileage by a little, older cars are horribly optimised so in the long run it would be great.
America resisting a change into what is already common practice pretty much everywhere else…. Sounds familiar?
I would love to see this since I have to get premium for my sti anyways lol. That would drive the price down since refineries and companies focus their production solely on premium
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