This is true but...
Unless you drive like a grandma , soft on pedal, flat roads, and all highway miles, and you actually track you mileage and calculate your mpg than most people will not notice the difference.
How you drive, f.i. stomping on the gas pedal will affect your mpg far more so than e85 versus the real stuff.
Also some top gasoline e85 performs better and may only be a slight decrease in mpg when using certain brands.
So e85 will always get less fuel efficiency but overall, you may not notice much depending on your driving habits. The OP probably hasn't noticed much difference because other factors affect mpg as well.
And at the end of the day, the e85 should be cheaper so $$ wise, it all balances out.
It soon won't matter as real gasoline is quickly becoming the elusive purple unicorn.
There is no real gas on my commute to work and to get pure gas for my lawnmower requires traveling 30 minutes (out of my way) in opposite direction from my house. If this station stops selling pure, will be hard pressed to find another location.
NONE of this is true. Gasoline has 19948 BTU/lb HHV. Ethanol has 12769 BTU/lb. Instead ot a stoichiometric ratio of 14.7:1, ethanol is 9:1. So, ethanol has 64% as much energy so you have to burn 1.5+ times as much to get the same horsepower and at 1.63 times as much to reach stoichiometry to control emissions, It DOES have a higher Octane rating, but to take advantage, the engine needs a higher compression ratio. That's nearly impossible to change on the fly to optimize a different fuel.
E85 is an abject failure. It uses a precious food crop to produce an inefficient fuel. Once ethanol is produced, it is better stored in charred oak barrels for future consumption. E10 is nearly as bad with the same loss of food supply. The 10% contamination alone requires the engine to burn 4.5% more fuel to reach stoichiometry, then add the BTU reduction of ethanol and the engine must about 7% more fuel to accomplish any task. Most of my cars have burned about 10% more fuel on E10.
I avoid it.