WI: Ethanol Vehicles the norm from early on?

[Gunnarnz]

It's 2013, and none of those things are commercially viable.

Without detracting from the force of your argument, one of the reasons something might not be commercially viable is because no-one has decided to make it so. We have over a century of thinking and investment in the idea that petroleum-based fuels are the right and proper way to power our vehicles, so it's not surprising other alternatives have been neglected.
But it is entirely possible to make an IC engine that runs on alcohol, so what is needed is a which makes that preferable to OTL.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Without detracting from the force of your argument, one of the reasons something might not be commercially viable is because no-one has decided to make it so. ...

Reminds me of the circular reasoning with high octane gasoline back in the 1930s. The oil companies would not refine it as there were no engines built for it, the auto makers would not build the engines because the oil companies were not refining it... Pilots & hot rodders of the era had to mix an build their own.

 

[ArKhan]

Would drunk driving be a bigger problem in TTL? I know in OTL there where several news stories about rather stupid individuals drinking car ethanol to get drunk (which is extremly dangerous due to the toxic additives they put in it), so it's not to far a stretch to say that in a timeline where ethanol fuel is more common, that this kind of stupidity would be rather more widespread.

 

[SactoMan101]

I don't think there would be a push for ethanol or methanol as automobile fuel for one reason: the oil companies by the late 1800's needed a market for the gasoline component of crude oil that was left after the refinement of kerosene, which otherwise would have been dumped as waste. The successful development of the Otto-cycle internal combustion engine that used this supposed "waste" from crude oil refining meant that early automobiles were going to end up using gasoline as fuel anyway.