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E5 fuel availability to be reviewed in five years

As part of the Department for Transport’s recent announcement that it will introduce E10 petrol as standard in the UK by September, its commitment to provide E5 fuel in higheroctane ‘protection grade’ for older vehicles including classic Fords is to be reviewed by the Government in five years.

Both the maintenance of the Super E5 protection grade and the introduction of E10 will be evaluated to ensure they remain appropriate to the needs of the market. Fortunately for owners of older vehicles not compatible with E10 without modification, the Government has reassured the Federation Of British Historic Vehicle Clubs (FBHVC) that without a suitable alternative becoming available, it’s likely the Super E5 protection grade would continue to be available.

Filling stations that stock two grades of petrol and supply at least one million litres of fuel in total each year will need to ensure one product is the Super E5 protection grade. While not all filling stations meet these criteria, almost all towns across the UK will have a filling station that supplies the Super grade and currently, one major retailer, a national supermarket group, has committed to offer the product. The main exception to this is in certain parts of the Highlands and the north and west coasts of Scotland, which will be covered by an exemption process and allowed to continue to market the 95-octane E5 grade.

The FBHVC is recommending that all vehicles produced before 2000 and some from the early 2000s that are considered non-compatible with E10 should use the Super E5 protection grade where the Ethanol content is limited to a maximum of 5 per cent. It recommends using the Government’s new online checker at www.gov.uk/check-vehicle-e10-petrol to check the compatibility of your vehicle.