I estimate the pass-through of automotive fuel tax changes to nal consumer prices, while accounting for how much of a retail market is covered by a tax change. In Spain, retail taxes on automotive fuel have a state-speci c component. At state borders, then where local competition straddles multiple states a tax hike in one state only a ects the marginal costs of some stations in a market. I sho...

Methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE) is a gasoline oxygenate that is widely used throughout the US and Europe as an octane-booster and as a means of reducing automotive carbon monoxide (CO) emissions. The combustion by-products of pure MTBE have been evaluated in previous laboratory studies, but little attention has been paid to the combustion by-products of MTBE as a component of gasoline. MTBE ...

The detailed analysis of the fuel sprays has been well recognized as an important step for optimizing the operation of internal-combustion engines to improve efficiency and reduce emissions. However, the structure and dynamics of highly transient fuel sprays have never been visualized or reconstructed in three dimensions (3D) previously due to numerous technical difficulties. By using an ultraf...

The extent to which consumers value the expected future fuel savings from fuel economy improvements to new passenger cars and light trucks is a key determinant of the levels of fuel economy achieved in unregulated markets and the effects of regulatory standards on consumers’ surplus. This paper reviews 28 recent quantitative analyses of consumers’ willingness to pay for automotive fuel economy....

A Concise Background on Fuel Oxygenates Fuel oxygenates are oxygencontaining compounds (e.g., ethers and alcohols) that are added to gasoline either to boost the octane rating, to make the fuel burn cleaner by increasing the oxygen content, or to achieve a combination of both. The most commonly used oxygenates are methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE) and ethanol. Other oxygenates include tertiary...

Rapid growth in economies and a sharp increase in the present quantity of vehicles have contributed to congested cities, traffic accidents, energy crises and air pollution, which not only cause serious economic damage but also affect human life and safety. According to the Kyoto Protocol international standards and consensus, the trend in the automotive industry is to develop more ecological ve...

The University of Idaho has been developing gasoline direct injection two-stroke engine technology for use in snowmobile applications as part of the Clean Snowmobile Challenge organized by the Society of Automotive Engineers. Applying GDI to a twostroke engine significantly reduces emissions of unburned hydrocarbons and improves fuel economy by reducing or eliminating the short circuiting of fu...

Small engines (<19kW) are used in many offroad applications, in both the domestic and industrial markets. The dominant driving force in these markets is cost; therefore the vast majority of these engines still use low cost carburettors to meter the fuel into the intake port. However all these engines are now facing increasingly strict emission targets and hence require new technologies to meet ...