can our cars take E85 fuel?

[avalon01]

can our cars take E85 fuel?
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/...1.asp?GT1=6872

they say it's cheaper (~$2/gal instead of $2.50+) and it's avaliable in the upper-midwest which is where i live.

What I'm concerned with is this last line:

But E85 does contain less energy, so mileage will suffer 10 % to 30%.

so wait, if i'm getting 30% less mpg... that's 75 cents loss if regular gas is $2.50. So if it's more than $1.75 it's not worth it in terms of price per mile driven, making it more expensive than regular gas.

After this tank I'm gonna try high octane since I've read that Avalon can benefit from it. With high octane being only 20 cents more I just need... 8% more mpg to make it worth the extra cost.

[02RSX90camry]

higher octane won't give you better gas mileage, it'll give you better combustion, because it won't detonate as quickly, allowing the car to advance the timing.

[Eye8Pussies]

^ unless your engine is high compression as it is, which really just means you're working at peak efficiency instead of the lower efficiency and possible engine flooding from the ecu dumps fuel to compensate for pinging