Governors' Biofuels Coalition

Steve Hebert for The New York Times.  Signs at the Zarco 66 filling station in Lawrence, Kan., proclaim that it is now selling E15, a stronger ethanol blend than E10. The owner says that sales have been relatively robust.

In the week since Scott Zaremba has been selling e15 for ordinary cars at his gas station in Lawrence, Kan., the oil industry has issued a national warning not to buy his product because of the possibility of engine damage, and the ethanol lobby has replied that oil companies might just as well tell people to buy nothing.

In May, the auto and oil industries reported that in a test they commissioned of E15, which is 15 percent ethanol and 85 percent unleaded gasoline, some models failed. The Department of Energy countered that the test was flawed and that its own research found that cars ran well on both. (Under Environmental Protection Agency rules, the fuel is only supposed to be used in cars from the 2001 model year onward.)

Either way, said Mr. Zaremba, the proprietor of a Phillips 66 station, customers were voting at the fuel pump, and the new blend accounted for about 20 percent of his sales. “It’s doing very well, for an unknown product,” he said.

A week ago he gave the product a little push, selling it for $1.50 a gallon from 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. “You give $1.50 a gallon, and people get interested,” he said. “If you’re selling water at $1.50 a gallon, they get interested.” Sure enough, cars were lined up out into the street.

He said some customers had read the warning on the pump about the appropriate model years and decided not to buy the fuel because their cars were more than 11 years old.

Still, most gas stations do not have the equipment to offer both E15 and E10 and thus may decide not to offer a fuel that cannot be used by about 40 percent of their customers. Others do not have the equipment to handle anything above E10.

So the success of the fuel is still far from clear, even if it is doing well in Lawrence.

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