Yellow Snow

Not one to mince words, Dan Becker calls GM's new campaign pushing the promise of flex fuel vehicles (Live Green, Go Yellow), "an unmitigated, total fraud."

The yellow being touted by GM is something called E85 -- an 85/15 mix of corn-based ethanol and gasoline. Flex fuel vehicles -- apparently GMs answer to hybrids -- can burn both conventional petrol and E85.

As reported by Grist's Amanda Griscom Little, Becker, who directs the Sierra Club's Global Warming Program, has quite a bit to say about FFVs, none of it good.

The only reason GM and Ford are churning out FFVs, says Becker, is the hefty CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) boost they get in return. The feds credit FFVs with getting markedly better gas mileage than they actually do, so the vehicles artificially inflate the overall fuel economy of an automaker's fleet by as much as 1.2 miles per gallon, according to Becker. That means, in essence, car companies that manufacture enough FFV passenger vehicles only have to meet a CAFE standard of 26.3 mpg, compared to the already paltry national standard of 27.5 mpg for passenger cars.

"It boils down to this: They get to make two more gas-guzzlers for every FFV they put out," said Becker. And since producing FFVs costs automakers about $100 extra per vehicle (it simply involves a different coating in the fuel-delivery system and a sensor that detects the ratio of ethanol to gasoline), the trade-off is a no-brainer. "There's no way Detroit would be producing these cars if they weren't allowed to weaken miles-per-gallon standards in return," Becker contends.

For more opinions about GM's flex fuel gambit, read the rest of "Corn at the Right Time."