E10 Petrol – Driving Lessons Basingstoke

To conform to the pressures put upon us by the environmental crisis, fuel retailers will be compelled to sell a new petrol formula in order to reduce harmful emissions. According to the UK government ‘petrol is changing’ with a new formula named ‘E10’. Named so because this new blend of petrol is composed of 10% ethanol and 90% regular unleaded. As you might expect, the current petrol known as E5 was named because of its ethanol content of up to 5%.

The rationale for this recent increase in ethanol is due its sustainability sourced alcohol-based biofuel which is produced from plant-matter, including sugar cane and grains. What’s more, is that ethanol has CO2 absorption properties whereas unleaded petrol does not, this means ethanol can partially offset greenhouse gas emissions. Estimates state that 92.2% of UK petrol engine vehicles fill up on E10, but cars registered prior to 2002 have been advised not to use this fuel as the ethanol content has been noted to corrode certain sensitive components. The cost to change them could prove steep.

It will be interesting to see what changes this new fuel will bring, especially in places like Basingstoke, or even if it will continue to be necessary against the continuing popularity of purely electric vehicles. The prevalence of petrol and diesel compared to electric could be mean the difference in the amount of manual transmission and driving lessons given by instructors, as manual transmissions may well die out alongside crude oils.