Slashdot Mirror
The Great Ethanol Scam
theodp writes "Over at BusinessWeek, Ed Wallace is creating quite a stir, reporting that not only is ethanol proving to be a dud as a fuel substitute, but there is increasing evidence that it is destroying engines in large numbers. Before lobbyists convince the government to increase the allowable amount of ethanol in fuel to 15%, Wallace suggests it's time to look at ethanol's effect on smog, fuel efficiency, global warming emissions, and food prices. Wallace concedes there will be some winners if the government moves the ethanol mandate to 15% — auto mechanics, for whom he says it will be the dawn of a new golden age."
..if this NY Times editorial is a sign of the times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/opinion/24sun2.htm .
Basically, it says that the ethanol lobbyists are fighting back against the EPA attempting to do its job by actually measuring the effects of ethanol as fuel.
The only thing wrong with ethanol is that big corporate farms are subsidized to make corn ethanol. If the U.S. just allowed the importation of sugar cane ethanol from countries like Brazil, then it would be a great thing.
If you've spent any time in Brazil, you will see that ethanol is just fine for internal combustion engines. They've almost exclusively used ethanol for the last ten years. Now maybe there's an argument about "flex fuel" but that is just a transitional fuel type. Once we can import environmentally and economically friendly sugar cane ethanol it won't be a problem any more.
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Engines with super-refined fuel always get worse gas mileage.
See, the crude oil is heated in a stack; the tar-like parts stay at the bottom, the lighter fuels find their way up. The thicker stuff at the bottom is MUCH more densely packed with energy- that's where the diesel is. It's 'cruder' (notice it almost doesn't WANT to burn) but it actually carries nore BTU-power per drop. Refine it more, to where it almost wants to burn when ya touch it, and it won't have so much power anymore.
Oil is neat stuff; you might find the Discovery Channel's "Modern Marvels: Oil" episode to be an eye-opener.
And BTW: Rush Limbaugh has been noticing this same thing with ethanol. It's messing up the corn market and Mt Dew now has "Throwback" to make use of the now-cheaper cane sugar as an alternative.
Isn't life wonderful when we just let the government do things? :
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Oh, so using a fuel different from the fuel specified by the manufacturer can destroy your engine. I don't think that's news. Ethanol is corrosive to plastic and rubber. If the pumps are spitting out higher than 10% ethanol, the chain of responsibility is pretty damn clear. Sue the gas seller.
Anyone who has done ethanol conversions for internal combustion engines (ICEs) can tell you that the conversion requires replacement of plastic and rubber hoses in the fuel system with stainless braided hose. Obviously if the system isn't originally designed for more than 10% ethanol there will be problems.
But the problem isn't with ethanol per se. While it doesn't contain as much energy per liter as straight gasoline, that never stopped gasoline from taking off in favor of diesel's increased energy per liter. Ethanol makes fuel octane ratings go through the roof, which means you can tune the engine to run leaner under acceleration. Even running under boost you can often run leaner than 12 AFR with E85.
I don't agree with the subsidies from the corn lobby, but attacking ethanol because "it destroys engines which weren't designed to run on ethanol" is frankly a stupid tack.
Actually, the increased effective octane of E85 means that it is much more detonation resistant than pure pump gas. That means you can run a lot more turbo boost than you'd normally be able to get away with on a "street" fuel.
You have to increase injector size quite a bit to offset the lower energy per volume, but with all the extra air crammed into the motor at high boost values, the net result is a metric assload of power from a freely available fuel.
Making 500 HP out of a turbo 2 litre street motor is entirely doable running this fuel. I had to run 118 octane C16 race fuel (at $10 US / gal) to get similar performance.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
E85 is actually a great fuel... For cars designed to run on it. The Koenigsegg CCX, for example, will run at 806 bhp in standard gasoline tune, but when you fill the tank with E85, you get 1018 bhp, no foolin'!
Ethanol is a really high octane fuel, which makes engineers quiver with delight, because they can predict, with much higher certainty than low-octane fuel, when and how much of it will detonate. Perfect for those tight tolerances in highly-strung engines.
Uhmm the REASON it's destroying engines is because of design decisions that work for gasoline that DON'T work for E85. 85% ethanol as far as I've been lead to understand REQUIRES Stainless fuel system/valvetrain parts in order to avoid excessively wearing an engine (in addition to being conductive, something that may not be appreciated in fuel-cooled fuel pumps.) This, along with differing fuel maps is the reason ford/gm had seperate vehicle packages for 'flex fuel' vehicles for so many years, and why even nowadays not all cars can/should be run on it.
It's not simply a matter of being 'inferior' fuel for automobiles, it's a matter of inferior engines being forced to use a fuel they can't handle (much like trying to retrofit a gas engine block for diesel instead of building a much more robust diesel oriented engine from the ground up...)
Honorary mention to the sugar lobby. By blocking sugar imports, a few jobs are saved, and many more are lost as virtually all candy is now manufactured in Canada or Mexico (where sugar is only half as expensive). Other food manufacturers switched to corn syrup, which is subsidized thanks to the farm lobby.
Given the shenanigans that go on in washington DC, I don't know why anyone wants them more involved, in healthcare, banking, wallstreet, automobiles, or anywhere.
Here in Brazil we have been using alcohol as a fuel source for years. When you go to a gas station, it is guaranteed that you will find both a gasoline pump and an alcohol pump. Most cars developed here since 2003 accept both fuels, using an engine technology called FLEX. The only difference is that the alcohol we use is called "Anidro", and it is 99.3% pure, while Ethanol is 96% pure (the rest being mostly water).
Based on this, to subsidize the price of the gasoline here, the government sets an alcohol mandate of 22%. So even if you have a gasoline-only car, you are really using 3/4 gasoline and 1/4 alcohol when you fill the tank. Since the alcohol does attack all parts of the engine that are in contact with it, engines produced for the brazilian market have a special protection layer. And indeed, owners of imported cars here usually fill their tanks with a special "premium" gasoline, that is basically pure and high-octane, to avoid damage. (Guess I don't have to say that gas stations rip you off for that)
If I clone myself, can I call it a thread?
If a girl winks to us, can I call it a race condition?
Oh, sweet Jesus that's a moronic post.
Let's spell this out:
1. Ethanol damages fuel systems.
2. Our current methods for producing ethanol are not efficiency winners.
3. Ethanol has lower energy density than gasoline.
4. The pro ethanol lobby is unnaturally strong.
5. You are posting at below-average quality ***for slashdot***.
Crock, eh?
Mechanics have been WELL aware of the problems caused by ethanol (particularly in boat, small engine, and commercial engine applications) for many years, but mechanics don't make public policy.
The 30-percent mileage drop appears to be worst-case, but the mechanical and corrosion problems are very real. I don't own a boat, and I can refit my older rides with ethanol-compatible carb (Holley for the trucks and S&S for for the Harleys) kits , but the MILLIONS of people who own engines too complex to easily refit with pumps, lines, seals and injectors will be screwed if the ethanol content goes up.
I'll make enough dough wrenching on the side off this to update my late model vehicles.:P
Example problems:
http://boatingsailing.suite101.com/article.cfm/ethanol_fuel_problems_for_boaters
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Since gas is measured and sold by volume, it only makes sense to talk about energy density in those terms. Ethanol is 23.5 MJ/L while 87 octane gas is 34.8. Fuel use of E100 seems to be growing. The most widely documented cases of damage due to use as an additive is when it is added to the driver.
Refined corn sugars(LFCS, HFCS) were only ever cheaper because of tariffs on cane sugar, FYI.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Umm, the American Ethanol Debacle is not a product of government
Sure it is, the only reason the industry had a chance was because of big government subsidies. It was always a money loser, but the government saved them.
If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
I have mentioned this before, but it strikes me as wasteful in modern car engines that the engine is run hot enough to cause the burning of nitrogen.
The greater the thermal differential between the input and output sides of a heat engine, the more energy you can extract from the fuel. Run the engine significantly cooler, and you may decrease some emissions (and increase others) but you'll lose some conversion efficiency.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Actually, no, using any food crop for fuel is a bad idea. This ensures that the 3rd world are always starving by removing food crops for consumption and replacing them with crops that go into rich 1st world nations' cars.
Case in point, I recently visited south western Thailand, while flying into the area and driving around you notice that there are NO rice fields, vegetable patches, or even grazing land for animals. It has all been converted into palm plantations for bio fuels. The palms are unable to be used for food due to being bred purely for the oils - no fruit, nothing.
On top of this, the amount of workers drops to almost 0 when running a palm oil farm - you only need workers at harvest and planting time which can be up to 5 years between. You do not need anyone to tend to the plantation at all during the growing cycle. So you end up with one person/family owning and profiting from the land while the rest of the village/region starve and/or live in poverty.
I am an environmentalist myself, but I will never agree with ANY bio fuels being used. This doesn't solve the issue at hand, which isn't the supply of fossil fuels, but the effect of any combustion fuels. Driving the price of food up in under developed nations to satisfy your own desire to feel warm and gooey inside is inexcusable.
In Brazil, ethanol fueled cars reached parity with gasoline-fueled ones still in the 1980's. Brazilian gasoline has about 24% ethanol, and properly designed engines work flawlessly. Nowadays, most cars are flex-fuel, i.e., can take ethanol, gasoline or anything mix of both.
The kind of fear-mongering from TFA = not invented here syndrome + troll.
^[:q!
Yeah, I am Brazilian and we have our ethanol program (Pro-alcool) since the 70s. It is true that the Engine needs to be specially prepared to handle ethanol. You can't just put ethanol on a regular gas powered car. In Brazil today, almost all cars run on both Gas and Ethanol. It really does work, and has been working for almost 40 years. Making ethanol out of corn? Newbies!
The U.S. govt is owned and operated by large corporations who are in the process of looting the treasury by insisting on subsidies: corporate welfare. The govt didn't "save" ethanol - the ethanol lobby simply got on the gravy train. Given the political importance of Iowa in presidential elections, and the over-representation of low population rural states in the Senate, (Wyoming gets the same as NY, CA, TX, etc.) and the importance of certain politicians from those states on key committees, the ethanol lobby had an easier time pulling money than a crackhead could stick up a 7-11 for twenty bucks and a bigGulp.
You have it exactly backwards: Govt didn't save the ethanol industry. the ethanol industry simply muscled their way in and grabbed the cash. Government isn't the problem here - it's the LACK of government that's the problem. It's the spinelessness of the Democratic party that's always on its knees blowing their donors, and the corruption of the Republicans doling out billions to their frat brothers.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
The difference is, when a government program fails, the solution is never terminating the program, but instead giving the program more money.
Newsflash: Freddy and Fanny are Government-Sponsored Enterprises, not free market entities!
The government can't save you.
None of the 4 cars I've owned that have been built in the years 1998, 2000, 2001, and 2004 respectively are built to run on E85. These cars aren't exactly unpopular models as they include 2 corollas, 1 Taurus, and one accord. You are very much wrong if you think that "basically all" US market cars sold in the last decade have been made for E85.
GM has comitted to, by 2012, having it so 50% of the vehicles they sell can accept E85. They haven't reached anywhere near that goal. Honda does not even offer ANY flex fuel vehicles for the US market. The other automakers do, but its still a small minority. Only about 7 million (wikipedia article) out of the what... 100 million or so cars in the US are flex fuel capable.
So it's not even that the "basically all" part of your statement is wrong. It's almost the opposite of the truth. I'd say it's more like "basically none" of the US market cars sold in the last decade are flex fuel vehicles. Only even a minority of those sold this year are.
The problems with ethanol as a fuel are twofold, though neither problem is insurmountable.
First, ethanol will damage and eventually destroy engines that are not designed to burn it, full stop. It deteriorates rubbers and plastics, notably fuel lines, filters, pumps, etc. but also causes lubrication problems with piston rings, valves, and so forth. Most "late model" cars in the US (the cutoff point for "late model" is sort of nebulous at the moment) are designed to handle up to 15% ethanol content in their fuel. It is a safe bet to assume that any vehicle that does not explicitly state in the manual or marketing literature that it is compatible with higher ethanol concentrations (E85, etc.) is not, in fact, compatible. E85 capability is a huge marketing bullet point these days, and aside from a few very new model vehicles from Chevy and especially Ford, American engines will be damaged by high ethanol concentrations. Full stop. No argument allowed, nor required. Many engines can be converted to run somewhat satisfactorily on ethanol, but most of them do not have a factory conversion and must be converted using third party parts with the usual gamut of quality problems that this often entails. Many, many engines on the road cannot be converted to ethanol at all: Truck engines, high performance engines, bike engines, etc. Also, many older engines ("older" as in 15-20 years, still otherwise perfectly viable vehicles, not to mention all of those even older than that) cannot be converted at all.
On the topic of destroying engines, I can provide experience for a sector nobody's thought much about: Small engines. Lawn mowers, chain saws, weed trimmers, and everything else related. In the small engine shop run by my store, we have seen a marked increase in failures of nearly every fuel related part in the power equipment we service. Fuel lines rotting out within a year of purchase, seals going bad, rings seizing, pistons scoring, and filters clogging. I have personally pulled lawn mower fuel filters from units filled with E15 fuel just packed with fibrous gunk the likes of which I had never seen before the ethanol-laden fuel became popular in my area. I guarantee you that if any piece of gasoline powered equipment runs at all on high-ethanol fuel, it will not do so for long.
The second caveat is that ethanol has lousy energy density compared to gasoline. You get less heat and less energy out of ethanol per gallon than gasoline, and there's no way around it. Converted vehicles will get reduced mileage on ethanol as compared to gasoline. Ethanol-only vehicles will have to have larger tanks or just suffer with less range per tank than comparable gasoline vehicles. If ethanol prices closely follow gasoline prices, even in the short term, it will become a much more expensive proposition than most people anticipate. Likewise, our "barrels per day" number will not be directly transferable from gasoline to ethanol - A considerably larger amount of ethanol will have to be produced, pumped, shipped, and sold compared to gasoline today. This will incur additional cost and add additional complication.
In time, these problems will be solved. But it's going to cost a lot, and the one thing Americans have been known to get sore about in a hurry is some government type coming along and demanding that they get rid of their stuff/spend money/buy a new lawn mower/mothball their classic car because of the Ethanol Revolution. Under the theoretical argument that the whole country goes ethanol eventually, I predict a LOT of resistance to the idea, rallied under banners of "taking away our freedom," "admonishing tradition," "from my cold, dead fingers," and so forth. Some of which, admittedly, will be justified. (Though I'd doubt regular old gasoline will go away any time soon, or indeed at all until we run out of crude oil entirely. Motorheads are die-hard types, many of them are willing to spend lots of money, and someone will crop up to meet that demand. On it goes.)
Uh, haven't basically all US market cars for the last decade or more been designed for E85?
No, they have not.
I know even my 1998 Windstar had filters and seals that were E85 compatible, it's not like it adds much cost to make a car E85 compatible.
Great, now are your sensors and injectors? What about the EFI computer? Do you know if the fuel tank and lines were also? E85 is more reactive so basically everything that the fuel comes in contact with has to be corrosion resistant. Your EFI computer also has to know to inject more fuel into the cylinders because E85 has a lower energy density than that of regular unleaded.
Heck here is the midwest winter mixes probably go to 15% ethanol already to combat fuel line freezup.
Fuel line freeze up is a diesel only issue. The freezing point of gasoline is around -120 F, possibly as "warm" as -97 at best depending on the the water content. Gasoline has winter and summer blends due to the change in atmospheric pressures and regulation by the EPA to maintain a specified Reid vapor pressure (RVP) for gasoline. If the RVP of a liquid exceeds the atmospheric pressure it will boil. Obviously this would not be a good thing. Since the atmospheric pressure is lower in the summer the RVP must be as well. In the winter the RVP can be higher, which also tends to make gas much cheaper to produce, with a higher RVP, and is why winter gas prices tend to be lower.
Germany, France and Britain are all lovely countries with economies just as strong (though obviously not as large) as the US.
Except that we need to compare with Europe as a whole, not just the states within the community.
According to Wolfram (this seems the sort of question it works well with), GDP for USA is $13.78T and Europe is $17.95T
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
it's not the gasoline that freezes, it the water that contaminates it. If you drive on a warmer day, air with more moisture is drwan into the fuel system, at night the moisture condenses out of the air and accumilates in the fuel tank and lines, if it below freezing it turns to ice and can easily occlude the fuel line. Having EtOH in the fuel lowers the freezing point of the water-ethanol mixure and solves the problem; many people in cold weather will add dry gas, methanol, to absorb the water.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Uh, haven't basically all US market cars for the last decade or more been designed for E85?
Rebutals from other responders to you post aside, there are still a lot of multi-decade cars on the road. My mom's car is 18 years old, and my brother's is 24.
Actually, the U.S. military has switched to burning JP-8, which is somewhere between diesel fuel and kerosene in everything that rolls or flies, from tanks, bulldozers, generators, humvees, and transport trucks to helicopters, cargo aircraft, bombers and jet fighters. Previously, the military used JP-4 in aircraft and no. 2 fuel oil for ground use. JP-4 is a wider "cut" than kerosene, and is similar to naptha or lighter fluid in its consistency and flammability, and can't be used in some diesel engines. One demonstration I remembered seeing when I was in the Army was when a match was thrown in a pan containing JP-4, Whoom! The fuel burst into flame as if it was gasoline, but when a match was thrown in a pan of JP-8, it went out. The reason for the switch was not just for safety, but to simplify logistics- everything drinks from the same tap. JP-8 was the compromise that would burn in any engine, turbine or diesel. JP-8 can also used in heaters. (BTW, most diesel engines will burn civilian Jet-A jet fuel without modification, and with no ill effects.)
I will have to comment on this one, since I enjoyed it.
You are right on your account there. Here in Brazil, when we first started wide scale ethanol use, the first ethanol engines would have trouble pretty soon. Lets say a regular gas engine would require maintenance every 5000Km, an ethanol engine would require maintenance every 2000Km. These are, of course, some wide numbers I took from my head, but they do give a good picture of how things WERE.
These days, all engines here are designed to run a mix of gas and ethanol. They are called Flex (flexible fuel) engines, and you can mix gas and ethanol whatever way you want. Or run on whichever is cheaper at that given station. And engines give no problems at all. Technology evolved a lot in the past 20 years.
I will, however, agree that corn is not a viable solution for producing ethanol, although I can totally understand the reasons USA wants to use it. Corn simply doesn't produce the same quality (energy etc) of ethanol as you get from sugar cane. Then again, I'm not really sure how much of an option sugar cane is for the USA. I do believe there are other options that might be as good as sugar cane, or at least better than corn. Sugar beat maybe ?
One thing that worries me (by looking at the Wikipedia page), is the low Greenhouse-gas savings for corn. While sugar cane based ethanol is listed as having 87-96% savings, corn is listed as 10-20%.
morcego
Oh golly.
We have different languages every few hundred of kilometres and people from North, South, and East European descent, who have arrived at different times from different places.
Just Spain recognizes several autonomous entities, with a seizable heritage (800 years) of Arabic culture and, naturally, DNA interchange, the UK is divided in 4 distinctive countries (with 2 recognized languages) and we know the disaster of the former Yugoslavia (where Muslims and Christians could not live together).
What about Sweden, Norway and Finland? Where several groups with different languages mix in each country? (for Linux nuts: Torvalds is not a Finnish last name).
As for Italy, tell a North Italian that they are pretty much like their compatriots in the South and he may reply to you, in German, that he politely chooses to disagree.
I could go on, but I think my point has been made.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Of course, the Model-T had no plastics to contend with. I sincerely doubt the veracity of some of the assertions of this article. The 10% ethanol that's currently in gasoline has no appreciable impact on fuel economy, and the alcohol content dries the fuel, which is helpful in damp/cool climates to offset condensation. I think we all know ethanol from corn is a money loser. The "net energy loss" argument is spurious, however. Charging a battery is a net energy loser, but is anyone suggesting batteries are a bad idea? We need a portable form of energy for the internal combustion engine, and we have to pay a "tax" in order to change the state of that energy from something we have to something we need. Brazil runs all of their cars (a lot of old vehicles, I might add) on 100% ethanol. The problem here is finite-life engineering; Parts, like plastic fuel pumps, that are designed to fail after the warranty runs out (5-8 years). Detroit used to rely on rust to make people buy new cars (remember the 70s?), but people quickly realized that a paint + patch was cheaper than replacing the car, as long as it was mechanically sound, and no-one pays a dealer to do that. Now they charge you 900$ for 6$ worth of plastic...
"Brazil runs all of their cars (a lot of old vehicles, I might add) on 100% ethanol."
*Cough* Bullshit *Cough*
According to Wikipedia:
There are no longer any light vehicles in Brazil running on pure gasoline. Since 1976 the government made it mandatory to blend anhydrous ethanol with gasoline, fluctuating between 10% to 22%.[12] and requiring just a minor adjustment on regular gasoline motors. In 1993 the mandatory blend was fixed by law at 22% anhydrous ethanol (E22) by volume in the entire country, but with leeway to the Executive to set different percentages of ethanol within pre-established boundaries. In 2003 these limits were set at a minimum of 20% and a maximum of 25%.[13] Since July 1st, 2007 the mandatory blend is 25% of anhydrous ethanol and 75% gasoline or E25 blend.[14]
Thank god the "bio-oil" craze didn't take off, where they tried to fuel cars with canola seed oil. The whole car smelled like you dumped week old McDonald fries in the trunk.
You are joking right, bio diesel is much more viable than alcohol. Actually diesel bio or fossil is cheaper and more economic to produce than petrol even with ethanol added. When you look at haulage trucks you normally see diesel and if the price of diesel goes up then haulage costs go up and so does the cost of living. Why would haulage use diesel? Well there are numerous reasons and the best are it's cheaper to run and the engine is very very reliable.
I run a diesel car and I get better fuel economy and produce less green house gases than the equivalent petrol engine. Smell? what smell, noise? what noise. Surprisingly even though the power of my engine is much lower than it's petrol equivalent it torque is so much higher that I have to be careful not to spin my wheels when I take off and this usually surprises many people when I out accelerate them by 3 to 4 car lengths in a 60 kph (35 mph) zone (no I don't exceed this although the pissed of driver does just to overtake me) without really trying. Of course a direct shift gear box does help.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
You're sort of right -- I assume you're peripherally involved with the use of E85 in the hot rod community, but haven't done it yourself.
From experience, its a pain in the balls to convert an engine to run on it. You lose a lot of horsepower, and you have to basically replace all the fuel lines, rejet the carb (if you can use the carb at all -- E85 is corrosive to aluminum, too).
Where it becomes interesting is when you build a new motor -- you can run a higher compression without having to run 100+ octane fuel, on smaller engines you can turbocharge with higher boost, but you have to do one of the two to get around the fact that you're producing a lot less power.
And you'll never EVER produce more power than gasoline with Ethanol. You can build an engine to burn more of it at a higher compression than you can with standard gasoline, but gallon for gallon you simply can't get more power with it. Gearheads prefer it to 100, or 110 octane because its not $7/gallon, so even if they burn 50-100% more of it, they still come out ahead.
E10 indeed drops mileage 5 to 10%, and you are MORE prone to having water problems in the fuel system, as moisture can come into your system via the fuel (in solution in the alcohol).
Not to mention that any engine with an open loop control system (mowers, weedwackers, 90% of all motorcycles) will have their fuel mixture leaned out (the more ethanol, the more fuel-rich the mixture needs to be). This need for a richer mixture is what drives the mileage decrease.
This causes poor running, overheating, stalling, and on engines that are already running excessively lean from the factory to meet emissions requirements there is a real risk of engine damage.
I lived the transition from E0 to E10 back in connecticut, so not only does thermodynamics say there is a mileage loss, so does experience.
Dave
Yes, but the cars in "the last 10 years or so are designed around at least partial ethanol fuels" mean 10% ethanol. My 2004 vehicle manual specifically says that they fuel should not contain more then 10% ethanol and any more "could cause serious damage to engine components" and that just putting something higher then E10 in the tank would void my warranty on my power train. So if I go to a station like those in the article that's higher (intentionally or accidentally) it could damage my engine because it's not designed for it. If the government raises the percentage to 15% what do I do? Run it an hope I don't get damage? Spend $$$ to upgrade/replace components? Replace the car? Do you consider a 2004 an "older car"?