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 only use 94 octane is my cars (bmw 135i tuned for 93 octane, mazdaspeed 3 and mazdaspeed 6, Mazda rx8) out of necessity and for the fact that they all run better with the higher grade fuel. Once they all get tunes then it’ll be mandatory to use it anyway.
Here in Quebec im paying between 1.45-1.55/liter
Où ça? Ici on a monté de 8 cents et on paye 1,34$ pour du 87
I’d love to make the the switch but my car doesn’t really need it right now cause it’s to expensive. If they can adjust the price then that would be great. Gas is already expensive here in Vancouver anyways so…
ayyy i already use 91
Its about 3.50 a gallon for the premium where im at, i dont want an increase either
what if your car doesnt need premium im not paying for it unless my car needs it
For the idea that this could potentially bring the cost of premium down somewhat, I’d be all for it due to the fact that I already only put premium in my car
It’s better for engines as you get a more complete burn so you have less carbon build up. And looking at the US and UK lexus owners club it seems the US is250 suffer a hell of a lot of problems with carbon build up around the valves due to lower octane standard fuel.
Our normal fuel is there premium and our premium fuel has a octane of 99-101.
Anyone else in the uk finding it a bit annoying that Americans are complaining about paying almost $4 in some places when we pay £1.25 for a LITRE of petrol here. And that’s without an exchange rate conversion
I live less than 30 km north of the US border and pay over $5 a gallon. ($1.55 cad/ litre). Not as bad as you but frustrating because all of the petrol on Vancouver island comes from Washington anyways…
1 gal (us) = 3.78 L
3.10 usd = 2.20 gbp
2.20/3.78= 0.58
3.10 dollars per gallon US is mathematically equivalent to 58 pence per litre
typical petrol prices here are around £1.20 per litre
I’m all for it