Over the past month or so, you?ve probably heard news readers banging on about E10 fuel and how it?s going to affect car drivers across the country. But we don?t really care about car drivers, here. And nobody seems to be talking about how much it?ll affect motorcycles, if at all. So we?ve been down to the library, dug our old chemistry text books out, and spoken to some people in the know, to find out everything a motorcyclist needs to know about E10 fuel.

What is it"

For some years, standard ?premium unleaded? petrol was ?E5?. E5 means the petrol has got an ethanol content of 5%. Ethanol being the pure form of a type of alcohol (the type that gets you pissed). E10 fuel, is petrol with 10% ethanol. It?s as simple as that.
Why the switch"

First of all, ethanol is made from crops, rather than distilled from crude oil. So by bolstering out the volume of petrol with ethanol (a renewable), you?re reducing the amount of oil (which is finite) you need to find, and pump out the ground.

That said, it is widely agreed that E10 fuel contains less of the energy that an engine needs than E5 or E0 (0% ethanol) fuel, so to achieve the same performance, you?ve got to use more fuel. The government have been quite clear that a lot of vehicles will use more E10 fuel, than they would E5, which does seem a little backwards. Until you consider how much extra money the government stand to make in fuel duty, thanks to people having to put extra fuel in their cars and ...