So, I don't want to spark a new debate on electric vehicles and their various variants.
I wondered what people think about whether keeping current vehicles on the road for extreme (greater than 15 years) lifetimes is actually more environmentally sound than creating a myriad new vehicles in more environmentally sound designs.
It seems intuitively right to me that keeping an 'old banger' on the road, provided it is safe, efficiently tuned and not pushing out clouds of fumes, is much more sound than scrapping said vehicles and manufacturing brand new ones in their place.
I firmly believe my 15 year old Jazz is overall more environmentally sound a proposition than my relatively new hybrid Rav4 or a brand new fully electric vehicle. It pushes out relatively low amounts of CO2, does around 50mpg and costs very little in terms of resources, stuff, to keep it going. My super complicated RAV4 does around 44mpg but has so far needed more spare parts in the two years I have had it than the Jazz in the 6 years I have had that.
Whatever motive technology is used for new vehicles, there should be a massive emphasis on simplicity, easy to fix, modular repairs, DIY repairs and upgrades, standardised battery packs etc..
None of this can be expected to arise from the competitive marketplace, so it would need to come from government directives and incentives, much as California has driven automotive efficiency standards in recent decades.
The problem is a lot of this would take the differentials out of motoring, making it difficult to market on exciting features. The emphasis would be on environmentally sound features and lower motoring costs. This might not appeal to the baby boomer generation but it should actually be massively appealing to the Generation Z who will soon become the major market for cars.
What do you think?