Ethanol For the Masses...If You're Near Brentwood.

Ethanol For the Masses...If You're Near Brentwood.

By John O'Dell February 21, 2008
Ethanol pumps -- with yellow nozzles, not green -- are scarce in many states.

Californians can read a lot about ethanol, but few have ever seen, or used, the stuff.

That's because until recently there was only one publicly available ethanol station in the entire state, and it was in San Diego County, relatively isolated from the bulk of the population.

Now, though, the state's retail ethanol station count has doubled!

That's right, there are two.  The new one's in the upscale Brentwood section of Los Angeles,

To celebrate – and help publicize – the newcomer, ethanol-boosting General Motors Corp. is offering drivers of flex-fuel vehicles capable of running on E85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, a brief chance to fill up their tanks next week for just 85 cents a gallon. Granted, this is a pretty limited promotion -- it lasts for only two hours -- designed more to get some publicity for GM than to give the 50,000–plus flex-fuel vehicle owners in Southern California a real break.

(Yes, sounds weird, 50,000 flex fuel vehicles sold in a region where its almost impossible for most to get anything but gasoline to run their cars and trucks on, but that's how the game is played. The federal government gives automakers mileage credits for making and selling the vehicles and hasn't seemed to care whether anyone actually puts an alternative fuel into them.)

But we figured that if we didn't write about GM's promo, there'd be one less chance for a flex-fuel driver to find out about it.

So here are the details:

Drive your E85-capable flex-fuel car or truck (it doesn't have to be a GM model) to Conserv Fuel at 11699 San Vicente Blvd., in lovely downtown Brentwood on Tuesday, Feb. 26, fill up there between noon and 2 p.m., and GM will pay the difference between 85 cents per gallon and the pump price, which is around $2.979 a gallon right now.

Yes, we know that it's only for two hours and that getting around L.A. during the lunch hour crunch is pretty miserable, but if you've got a flex-fuel truck with a 25-gallon tank you could save a wad of cash.

And you could find out what your truck, or car, runs like when that ethanol stuff finally finds its way into the tank.

We'd be interested in hearing from you.

John O'Dell:  is an AutoObserver Senior Editor. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.