Positive Outlooks remain for E15, E30, E85, through timing unknown
By Susanne Retka Schill
The quest for higher blends gets closer all along, even as year-round E15 legislation remains just short of the congressional finish line. E30 research looks promising, and California appears poised to expand access to higher blends. Though E30 approval for non-FFVs is likely years away, California E85 legislation may get passed this summer and pressure is on Congress to enact year-round E15.
In early summer, HR 1346, a standalone E15 bill, passed the House of Representatives on a 218-203 vote. “We’re riding the momentum of that significant bipartisan vote in the House and trying to build on that in the Senate,” says Brian Jennings, CEO of the American Coalition for Ethanol. Given the high cost of fuel, he adds, “there is widespread support to help relieve pain at the pump, and E15 is one thing they could do. The objection is language the House added to HR 1346 on small refinery exemptions.” Senators from Arkansas and Wyoming oppose the SRE reforms, he explains. “Efforts are underway, led by Majority Leader Thune from South Dakota and Sen. Fisher of Nebraska, who is the lead sponsor of E15, to look at different iterations of the language that can get enough votes to pass.”
Midwest E15 progress
While the nationwide effort continues, the E15 market is growing in the Midwest. Iowa, in particular, saw E15 use surge to over 410 million gallons last year, a 60% increase compared to the previous year. At the end of 2025, more than half of Iowa’s 1,771 fuel stations offered E15, with the blend accounting for 27% of gasoline sales.
Ron Lamberty, ACE’s chief marketing officer, sounds a cautionary note, however. In going all-in for E15, “we’re kind of forgetting about E85,”
Minnesota’s E15 growth hasn’t been as dramatic as Iowa’s but has been steady with five consecutive years of record Unleaded 88 (E15) sales. Sales in 2025 totaled 144.34 million gallons from 552 stations.
While grants for blend pump infrastructure get attention, the best boost for E15 increases comes from cash incentives for retailers, Lamberty says. “You can give people dispensers,” Lamberty says, “but that doesn’t make them want to sell the stuff. When you give them a tax credit, they sell it because they want the extra margin. We’ve got five states with incentives, so we’ve got results we can point to.”
The first was Iowa, with 9 cents per gallon for E15 and 16 cents for E85. Nebraska’s tax incentive is authorized through 2028, offering 8 cents per gallon in 2026, 7 cents per gallon in 2027 and 5 cents in 2028. South Dakota’s program offering 5 cents went into effect in 2025, alongside new Missouri and Kansas programs, where comparative data is not yet available.
In Nebraska, newly built fuel stations are required to offer E15 in at least half their pumps and existing retailers must offer E15 from at least one dispenser by January 2028, says Ben Rhodes, executive director of the Nebraska Ethanol Board. “We’ve seen E15 gallons really increase in the last couple of years.” 2025 E15 sales totaled 94 million gallons, up from about 65 million gallons in 2024. “So, in the space of 12 months, we’ve had 150% increase, which is pretty remarkable.” Like Iowa, E85 sales are down, he adds. “They’ve not fallen off a cliff, but seem to be declining because the number of flex fuel vehicles being offered for sale is declining.”
Lamberty points out that while there are fewer FFVs being offered now, there are still more FFVs on the road than electric vehicles. And Rhodes adds that his FFV-driving friends are getting E85 “religiously every time they fill up. Right now, they are saving an absolute amazing amount of money.”
Promising E30 data from Nebraska
The savings from higher blends are clearly seen in Nebraska’s E30 project. The fuel savings from the state fleet vehicles using E30 have paid for the research project, Rhodes says. Costing roughly $100,000 per year, “the demonstration has paid for itself almost twice over in the savings that the state has reaped from buying E30.”
Phase 2 of Nebraska’s E30 demonstration involves 800 vehicles including 100 equipped with data trackers. The state government cars from four departments represent a mix of makes, models, years and engine types “from little sedans all the way up to big F150s on the game and parks side, and everything in between,” Rhodes says. The expanded number and range of vehicle types was in response to feedback from the peer-reviewed paper published after Phase 1, which reported results from 50 state highway patrol vehicles, all non-FFVs, with half running on E30 and half on E15. Phase 2 is using E10 as the control fuel to provide the most robust comparison between E30 and regular gasoline, he explains.
The interim report for Phase 2 shows the reduction in fuel economy on average is between 5 and 8.8% for E30 compared to E10, which is more than offset by E30’s price advantage. “The price spread has held very stable, regardless of season or supply chain disruptions,” Rhodes adds. “E30’s price advantage of roughly 15 to 20% translates, in some cases, up to 50 cents or more per gallon.”
Phase 2 of the demonstration will wrap up by summer’s end, after which the data will be analyzed and another paper submitted for peer reviewal and publishing. “We need to make the case to the government, using peer-reviewed research like this, that E30 is safe and effective,” Rhodes says. “The reason we’re doing this is to become that first domino in what we hope is a long chain of E30 research that eventually leads to widespread approval and use.”
California progress
California’s path to expanding access to higher blends is getting closer, though still probably a year away.
California’s E85 sales would get a boost if AB2046, a bill to allow EPA-approved E85 conversion kits, gets passed in the state senate and signed by the governor, possibly late this summer. Earlier, the state assembly unanimously approved the bill.
E85 sales in California have grown rapidly. Before 2020 they totaled around 40 million gallons, rising to 118 million in 2023. Wilkerson says 2026 is on track to be a record, forecast to reach 130 million to 140 million gallons by year end. “In California, E85 is almost always an economical choice,” he says. During this years’ fuel disruption due to the Iran conflict, the prices savings for E85 approached $3 a gallon. “But most months, during normal economic scenarios, we’re $1.50 to $2 below gasoline.”
California saw a slight increase in FFVs on the road last year, now totaling close to 1.1 million, Wilkerson says. “However, the number of new FFVs being offered from automakers continues to decrease. The only two you can get off the lot now are the Chevy Trax and the Buick Envista.” In particular, the Chevy Trax has become a very popular choice, he adds, “because it’s efficient and it’s incredibly affordable.”
The story of E15 in the California legislature is similar to that of the E85 conversion kits, Wilkerson says. “E15 was able to sail through the legislature last year and obtain the governor’s signature, partially because people were still worried about high gas prices. And last year was the first in a while where we didn’t have a monthly average over $5 a gallon. That tells you how acutely legislators are concerned about gas prices.”
Challenges remain for implementation of E15. The remaining regulatory hurdles include getting nozzles approved by the state fire marshal and completing new rules from the California Air Resources Board (CARB). “To bury an additional tank in Los Angeles or San Diego just for E15 is probably unlikely,” Wilkerson explains. “And we don’t know yet if CARB is going to allow blending on site, where you blend E85 to make E15.” CARB has yet to start rule making, he adds. “Once CARB starts, they have a year to close that out.” The bill legalizing E15 in California was passed as an “urgency measure,” which allows E15 sales immediately while CARB finishes its rulemaking, but the urgency designation doesn’t apply to the fire marshal’s approval and has shown no sign of acting quickly on the nozzle approval.
E85 kit experience
In anticipation of kit approval in California, Finland-based StepOne Tech Ltd. is working to get more of its eFlexFuel kits registered with EPA, says CEO Tuomo Isokivijärvi.
The kits come with vehicle-specific components, generally taking 1-3 hours to install. They include an ethanol sensor installed on the car’s fuel line, Isokivijärvi explains. “Then our control unit works with the vehicle’s electronic control unit to adjust the fueling according to the specific ethanol percentage.” The roughly $700 cost of installing an E85 conversion kit is just 2-3% of the cost of buying an electric vehicle, he points out, and generally has a one-year payback in fuel savings.
Isokivijärvi says roughly 80-90% of U.S. gasoline-powered vehicles on the road today are compatible with their E85 kits. Those that aren’t would have a fuel injection system their engineers have not yet tested and older vehicles that don’t have electronic fuel injection systems. StepOne Tech has a selection of vehicles that have been tested to be EPA compliant and registered, and they are working to expand that portfolio.
Isokivijärvi looks to their experience when asked how long the kits might take to catch on in California. “From what we have seen in the French market, it can be rather fast. Over there, E85 consumption exploded in the time span of about five years, once the new regulation was implemented.” With a price gap between E85 and regular that’s similar to California’s, he adds, E85 is now offered at close to 4,500 stations in France. StepOne Tech has close to 70,000 systems installed, which includes trucks, boats, ski jets, and motorcycles.
“Our mission is to basically empower people to make the choice of transitioning away from using fossil fuels,” Isokivijärvi says. “We believe that choice should not be only accessible to the wealthy who can buy a new electric vehicle.”
“Ethanol is becoming one of the major go-to solutions to enhance energy self-sufficiency, energy security and fight against rising oil prices,” he says. We believe ethanol can be a big, global solution that’s going to advance in tandem, or in parallel with electrification.”
Ethanol hasn’t gotten the visibility and prestige it deserves in Europe, he continues, because of the misunderstandings and misinformation that result in constant debates over whether ethanol is good or not. While there are political forces in Europe wanting strict restrictions on ethanol, such as caps on crop-based biofuels, he says, “there are also more realistic and science-based forces trying to make ethanol-based fuels more accessible. We believe we have solid enough evidence and science that it’s better for the environment, climate, wildlife, economy and for people. We believe it’s one of the solutions for the next decade that’s going to help the global automotive market and existing legacy fleet be more economical and sustainable.”