I'm writing this on the final day of April, 2026, and if you're a person who has to put fuel in any kind of vehicle right now, chances are excellent you already know that fuel prices are bonkers thanks to the current war-induced fuel crisis. This is a problem that is being felt everywhere around the globe, to varying degrees.
Here in the US, because we have federal regulations governing the amount of ethanol that can and/or should be mixed in with our gasoline, that's what's supposed to be what's coming out of the pump when you fuel up. Depending on the gas station you go to, you can of course find higher mixtures of ethanol available.
However, federal regulations state that they must be clearly labeled to prevent accidentally putting the wrong fuel in your vehicle. For example, while newer cars can handle E15 (and maybe save you a little money at the same time), older cars can't. You can seriously damage vehicles that aren't built to handle higher ethanol content, which will probably cost way more money in repairs than you might save on fuel.
As humans, our brains are wired for pattern recognition. Sometimes this is helpful, but sometimes, it can lead us to see patterns that may or may not actually be present. As fuel prices rise, and more folks put their tinfoil hats on to wonder aloud if all this cash we're shelling out for fuel is truly filling our tanks with the real deal, Jeremiah at BigTime decided to fight conspiracy theories with science. (That's always a good idea, right?)
What did they do? As you may or may not be aware, the chemical properties of water cause it to bond with ethanol, which can pull it right out of gasoline/ethanol blends. There are test kits that you or I or anyone interested could buy to test our own gasoline to see just what percentage of ethanol is in it, or you could also conduct tests with water and a graduated cylinder, if you prefer to do the math yourself.
The BigTime folks went to four different gas stations around Los Angeles, retrieving regular gasoline from all of them. They used clean Mason jars as their specimen cups, then tested each of them in turn. As for the results? Well, depending on what you're expecting, they may or may not surprise you.
Watch the video to find out, and then maybe think about doing this with the fuel pumps in your area to see what you see.
