Consumers Caught In The Squeeze As Industry Pushes For High Octane Standard

A surprising number of people run 91 in cars designed for 87 because they think it makes a massive difference.

If it stops the engine from pinging and gives you a bit extra power, esp. in stop and go city driving...

@vdiv If a car is designed for 87, 91 does nothing for it.

The whole point of the exercise was that the combination of savings on gasoline on the road - PLUS savings from production of only ONE gasoline - was to be a wash - so it would not really cost anything to the final consumer.

If you look up PAST items - there will be a such a post on this site as well.

Trust me, they will find a way to jack the price up

They really need to make top tier fuel mandatory. This saves the consumer down the road with a cleaner burn throughout the lifetime of the vehicle.

Then take off the ridiculous add on taxes to gas to make the top tier affordable. The point is that going to 91 for emissions improvement will have a minuscule payoff.

Let examine the claim in the first paragraph: "you can capture an easy 3 to 4 percent fuel efficiency gain at modest expense".

Premium typically costs 20 cents or more a gallon over regular - that's at least 7% more expensive. Whose math is it based on to say "a modest expense" compared to 3%-4% efficiency gain ?

The only parties to gain from this are the oil industry and the politician pigs that suck off from the consumers. The good thing that comes out of this move is it will drive more consumers away from ICE and toward BEV and renewable energies. The end of ICE is coming - soon.

EVisNow - THe problem is - you are missing the other part of the puzzle. Higher octane allows ICE engines to be developed using higher compression ratios - which CAN BE more efficient - and also pollute less at the same time.

Until the Infrastructure for EVs is far more well developed - the END of ICE prediction is not coming even in MY lifetime - and likely for a long time.
Remember - we still do not have the electric generation capacity to take the place of all the energy from fossil fuels - and many generating plants today require those fossil fuels to generate electricity - simply moving the emissions from one place to another. It can take decades to get approvals for new Generating plants as well - and NO - this cannot ALL be done with wind or solar as well.

If you lived in a second story walkup in Brooklyn - with only street parking Worse - alternate side of the street too) - where are the PUBLIC charging stations that give enough charge for you to do your daily commute - along with the Tens of thousands of others who do it? You do not have a garage - you cannot put it in front of your house - you are not guaranteed that space - or may be across the street on alternate days - EVS sound good - but in reality there are still a lot of basic holes - How about if you have a regular 80 mile one way commute - only a few electric cars can handle that. ANd these are just two examples - there are plenty of others. Remember - I live in a rural area - and actually have driven a Hybrid - but I would NEVER consider an EV until there was a way to "swap out" some batteries for a charge - otherwise - everytime you run out of power - it is a tow.

Not too long ago, EV was a novelty. But in a few years from now, the market will be filled with offerings from VAG, MB, Jaguar, Volvo and other Chinese upstarts - in addition to Tesla. You will witness sea change in YOUR lifetime I hope.
For the laggards like GM and Ford, their demise is already decided by their desperate hold on the ICE and truck market. All it takes is for oil price to go back to $100/barrel and the bottom will fall out from under them.

Look at today's highest efficient engines that Toyota and Mazda have developed with high compression using 87. Plus would take decades to convert the fleet to high octane only, by then EV will take over.

If you want higher-octane fuel available, fine. Just don't get rid of the regular gas, just so you can increase the least-expensive fuel.

There are automotive engineers (like Subaru) who can meet emission regs using regular gas. Why penalize them, and the cost savings that presents to consumers, because others can only do it with premium? In foreign markets, premium can cost around 20% more than regular, without delivering 20% better fuel economy.