We've just had a nice estate off the Saab press fleet. Nothing unusual about that, except that this is the Biopower 9-5 estate which runs on E85, a mixture of 85% bioethanol and 15% petrol.
How did we get on with it? There's good and bad news to report.
The good news is that we paid 81.9p/litre for the bioethanol compared to 85.9p/litre for standard unleaded. Also, the greener fuel gave more power - 210hp compared to the 9-5's usual 185hp - though there was a price to pay in 6mpg poorer fuel consumption and higher vehicle purchase price.
Plus (and this is the best bit) the bioethanol mix shoves 70% less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and we were using a fuel that can be produced from crops that grow in Britain. OK, so there aren't any bioethanol plants here yet, but they're coming.
The fly in the ointment - and it's a big fat horse-fly rather than a midge - is that there are only a dozen or so places in the UK that sell the stuff (most are at Morrisons supermarkets)
You might imagine that in the US, where bioethanol production plants are popping up faster than mushrooms in a wet meadow, the situation would be very different. However, according to The Independent, of the 170,000 petrol stations in the US, just 2000 can serve you with bioethanol or biodiesel. So, there as here, it's all a bit of a Catch 22 situation.