EEFuel Newest Gas additive

The Ethos Fuel Reformulator has supposedly been around for more than ten years (see also Company History below). Early in 2006 it gained a lot of publicity due to launching an MLM marketing scheme via a partner company, 4-E Corporation. (In this page I will use the term "Ethos" to refer to both Ethos Environmental Inc and 4-E Corporation, although they are separate legal entities.) [4-E changed its website to "4PlanetEarth" in early 2007 and some of the links below are now broken; I will try and fix them when I have the time.

The mere fact of employing MLM techniques does of course immediately trigger warning bells among septics. Some perfectly good and effective products are sold through MLM, but it is also a common method employed by scammers and snake-oil salesmen to maximize revenue from ineffective products. (Commonly, the "early adopters" make much, if not most, of their money by recruiting lower-level sales people rather than directly through product sales.)

Supporters sometimes claim that Ethos FR "is not a fuel additive" (and thus that it should not be grouped with other additives by critics such as myself), but to me, if something is "added" to "fuel" then it is a "fuel additive". And if you scroll down through the EPA's list of registered fuel additives, you will find Ethos FR. (Though note that registration merely shows that Ethos have informed EPA of the composition of the product, not that EPA certify its economy and emissions benefits.) Finally, the Patent describes the product as "an additive for diesel fuel", which rather proves the point.

Theory

The theory of operation of Ethos FR is explained on their web page, and also in the Patent for the "predecessor" product D-1280X. Unlike many fuel "saving" products, the theory does seem to make a certain amount of sense - the claim is that the product improves lubrication (and hence reduces friction losses), and also cleans components in the fuel system. Essentially these are two separate mechanisms, and will be considered individually.

Improved lubrication

On a typical engine running at typical driving conditions, something like 25% of the input fuel energy goes to overcoming friction; of that, maybe half is related to the piston and rings (the area where a fuel additive like Ethos can potentially make a difference). (There is some discussion on this topic on page 6 of this document.) So if Ethos can totally eliminate friction in this area, then it could potentially save 10% on fuel consumption - though remember that the piston and rings are already lubricated by oil splash from below, and without evidence that Ethos is vastly more "slippy" than normal engine oil, I am highly septical that the improvement is really that large. (Ethos themselves state that esthers such as Ethos have been superceded by polyalphaolefins as the base for synthetic engine oil, which implies that esthers are not significantly better than current synthetic oil in terms of lubricant properties.)

It is also perhaps worth asking: if it is such a great lubricant, why is the recommendation not simply to put it into the sump where it can lubricate all moving parts? While the most recent advice is to add it to the oil as well, there does not seem to be any mention of this on the Patent (so it was not the inventor's intention), and in any case this still means the great majority of the product is simply disappearing down the exhaust pipe.

Cleaning

It is difficult to say for certain whether or not Ethos can clean fuel systems and engines, though as a general principle I am septical about the need for this - particularly the need to add cleaning product to each and every tank of fuel, rather than just once per year or so. (It may be that some of the smoke reduction seen on old diesel engines is due to a "one-off" cleaning of the injectors, rather than any continuing effect of permanent dosing with Ethos FR.)

Ethos also make the general claim that their product "makes engines combust fuel more completely", which as you can see from this page is worth taking with a pinch of salt. I have even heard claims by Ethos supporters that as much as 30% of the fuel typically escapes unburnt down the exhaust pipe, which is simply nonsense.

Test results (mostly Diesel smoke?)

There are 13 separate test reports here, but the vast majority of them focus on reductions of Diesel smoke (opacity). This also fits with the Patent, which talks almost exclusively about operation with Diesel, and largely about smoke reduction rather than economy improvement. Reduction of Diesel smoke is of course a worthy goal, but does not seem to give the same kind of incentive to use Ethos FR as would a large improvement in fuel consumption; and given the radically different natures of the combustion processes in gasoline and diesel engines, it is far from clear to me that any economy benefit with diesel can be read across to gasoline (which is of course what most US motorists use).

There are a few mentions of fuel consumption within the report:

- Camacho (diesel trucks): 11.3% improvement
- Cloud 9 shuttle (gasoline vans): 5.8% improvement
- Department of Justice (diesel buses): 19% improvement

Again it can be seen that these improvements largely relate to diesel vehicles, with the one gasoline fleet gaining a relatively modest 5.8%. And as with the testimonials (see below), all this data is obtained under uncontrolled on-road conditions (varying weather, types of journeys, driving style, etc), and is not recorded in way that would allow the statistical significance to be assessed (in other words, is the natural day-to-day variation in MPG bigger or smaller than the apparent improvement seen when Ethos is added.) Overall, as a scientist and engineer, this seems to me to be insufficient data on which to base a claim of 7 - 19% economy benefit on modern gasoline cars. (It is also worth noting that the Cloud 9 Shuttle vans were very old, with an average of over 400 000 miles on the clock.)

What appears to be totally lacking, so far as I can see, is any "proper" scientific testing. As with all such products, it seems astonishing that the makers are not willing to spend a tiny fraction of the potential profits on establishing incontrovertible proof of effectiveness. Especially after what happened recently to BioPerformance, you would think companies such as Ethos would be desperate to have such robust scientific data to avoid legal challenges.

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