Just in time for holiday travel, the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) is proud to announce the Flex-Fuel Station Locator application for Android phones.

This application is free and easy to download. Now, flex-fuel vehicle (FFV) drivers will always know where they can fuel up next.

The Flex-Fuel Station Locator for the Android phone series is the first smart phone application developed by the RFA. This new program provides the customer with location, fuel price, directions and a phone number to all E85 (85 percent ethanol, 15 percent gasoline) stations in their area.

The main screen features three button icons: Nearest station, Favorites, and About. Clicking the Nearest button brings up a map of the area with green fuel tanks marking each E85 fueling location. This map is very user friendly as it is easy to navigate and click the station that most interests the user. If the customer has a few stations that they frequently visit, it is easy to make them a Favorite by highlighting the star associated with that specific fuel pump.

For a full list of stations in the area, the list icon in the upper right hand corner of the mapped screen provides a page of all the stations including distance from current location and address.

To develop this application, the RFA utilized the E85 station database hosted by the Alternative Fuels & Advanced Vehicles Data Center and the U.S. Department of Energy. With this continuously updated data, the Flex-Fuel Station Locator application is able to locate more than 2,400 E85 fueling stations throughout the United States.

The application is available at no cost on the Android Marketplace application store. You can also scan the bar code to the right to download the application immediately to your phone.

"Being able to provide America's consumers with more access to flex-fuel stations is helping raise awareness of the increasing amount of alternative fuels that are available to them," said RFA Market Development Director, Robert White.

"As more Americans fuel up with domestic fuel, we can reduce our dependency on foreign oil and increase energy security."

Similar to the Flex-Fuel Station Locator, the RFA has developed an E85 Point of Interest (POI) application for Garmin and TomTom GPS devices. Updated quarterly, these GPS applications accurately guide drivers to over 2,400 E85 fueling stations throughout the United States.

There, consumers can download individual state data, a combination of states, or national data directly from their computer to the GPS device. The database for both TomTom and Garmin can be found at www.ChooseEthanol.com.

As a reminder, E85 is an ethanol blended gasoline made up of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. This fuel is to be used in flex-fuel vehicles only, as they have been designed to operate on any level of ethanol blended gasoline.