4 ms·

Agreed, but let's also be honest, the industry is weak when it comes to quality control, which isn't helped by the general attitude of replacing cars once they

by zhdc1 9y ago

Agreed, but let's also be honest, the industry is weak when it comes to quality control, which isn't helped by the general attitude of replacing cars once they go over 100-150k km (~93k miles). This definitely isn't my field, but I'm at a loss to see where BMW, VW, &c. plan to purchase inputs once they start to scale ev manufacturing. The closest thing to a EU gigafactory isn't set to come online until 2023 (the Nortvolt in Sweden), and Europe isn't known (as far as I'm aware) for rare earth mining.

TomMarius 9y ago
> which isn't helped by the general attitude of replacing cars once they go over 100-150k km This is something that only rich (compared to the rest) people do in Europe. Most people never owned a brand new car and drive their cars up to 500k km and more (if the car allows it, nowadays it's not possible).
- chiph 9y ago
  Why wouldn't it be possible? The car couldn't pass the TUV inspection at that mileage, simply because of the high km on the odometer? Or do the inspectors demand that things like airbags get replaced, where the parts are no longer available?
  - zhdc1 9y ago
    Rust is a big reason for why cars fail.
  - TomMarius 9y ago
    Mileage itself is not an issue, but the requirements are increasing (especially for emissions) and new cars are nowhere as durable as old cars used to be.
    - chiph 9y ago
      So your car gets tested against current emissions standards, and not the ones that were in place back when it was manufactured? That sounds harsh. But certainly a boon for the auto makers, anyway.
      - TomMarius 9y ago
        They get tested against the standards that were in place, that's alright. They tax and/or disallow the whole standard. There are several different measures for different things, e.g. a green/yellow/red plaquette with a number that straight up disallows old cars from accessing some central areas of cities. Then there's the Euro1-whatever rating on which the calculation of ecological tax is based.
- zhdc1 9y ago
  I get a feeling that this is influenced by which part of the country you live in. The average age of a passenger car in Germany is ~6.7 years. I wasn't able to find a recent reliable figure for the average number of KMs driven per car per year, but the EU has is listed at ~14,000 for Germany in 2012, and I don't really see why the number would have increased dramatically over the last five or so years. Anyway, it looks like the average passenger car in Germany has been driven for ~87,000km. Germany is also on the lower side for average car age (France, and Italy are a little higher). This is a back of the hand estimate, but it matches up with my perception that people look to replace their cars once they go above 100-150k km. Again, if you're younger, take longer commutes, or live outside of a large city (or are just frugal), I'm willing to bet that this number goes up dramatically (Eastern Europeans, for instance, hold onto their cars for a much longer period of time, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is also true for many portions of East Germany).
  - thomasz 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrappage_program#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrappage_program#Germany
  - mantas 9y ago
    The 6.7 is average age for a car on a road today, not average lifetime of a car. You've as many brand-new and 13 years old cars on the road to have that average. Keep in mind that scrap age is lowered by company cars and taxies which could easily clock 200'000km in few years.
  - MrRadar 9y ago
    > The average age of a passenger car in Germany is ~6.7 years. From a US perspective that number is insanely low! The average age of a car in the US was 11.6 years in 2016.[1] The average US driver drives 13.5k miles (21.7 km) per year[2] so that means the average car in the US would have around 156k miles (251k km) on its clock. I wonder if the German number is skewed lower because it's only measuring a relatively wealthy part of the EU. Do most used German cars simply get exported to less wealthy parts of the EU instead of being re-sold within Germany? [1]http://www.autonews.com/article/20161122/RETAIL05/161129973/average-age-of-vehicles-on-road-hits-11.6-years http://www.autonews.com/article/20161122/RETAIL05/161129973/... [2]https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm
- rad_gruchalski 9y ago
  Leasing?

by zhdc1 9y ago

TomMarius 9y ago

> which isn't helped by the general attitude of replacing cars once they go over 100-150k km This is something that only rich (compared to the rest) people do in Europe. Most people never owned a brand new car and drive their cars up to 500k km and more (if the car allows it, nowadays it's not possible).

chiph 9y ago
Why wouldn't it be possible? The car couldn't pass the TUV inspection at that mileage, simply because of the high km on the odometer? Or do the inspectors demand that things like airbags get replaced, where the parts are no longer available?
- zhdc1 9y ago
  Rust is a big reason for why cars fail.
- TomMarius 9y ago
  Mileage itself is not an issue, but the requirements are increasing (especially for emissions) and new cars are nowhere as durable as old cars used to be.
  - chiph 9y ago
    So your car gets tested against current emissions standards, and not the ones that were in place back when it was manufactured? That sounds harsh. But certainly a boon for the auto makers, anyway.
    - TomMarius 9y ago
      They get tested against the standards that were in place, that's alright. They tax and/or disallow the whole standard. There are several different measures for different things, e.g. a green/yellow/red plaquette with a number that straight up disallows old cars from accessing some central areas of cities. Then there's the Euro1-whatever rating on which the calculation of ecological tax is based.
zhdc1 9y ago
I get a feeling that this is influenced by which part of the country you live in. The average age of a passenger car in Germany is ~6.7 years. I wasn't able to find a recent reliable figure for the average number of KMs driven per car per year, but the EU has is listed at ~14,000 for Germany in 2012, and I don't really see why the number would have increased dramatically over the last five or so years. Anyway, it looks like the average passenger car in Germany has been driven for ~87,000km. Germany is also on the lower side for average car age (France, and Italy are a little higher). This is a back of the hand estimate, but it matches up with my perception that people look to replace their cars once they go above 100-150k km. Again, if you're younger, take longer commutes, or live outside of a large city (or are just frugal), I'm willing to bet that this number goes up dramatically (Eastern Europeans, for instance, hold onto their cars for a much longer period of time, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is also true for many portions of East Germany).
- thomasz 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrappage_program#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrappage_program#Germany
- mantas 9y ago
  The 6.7 is average age for a car on a road today, not average lifetime of a car. You've as many brand-new and 13 years old cars on the road to have that average. Keep in mind that scrap age is lowered by company cars and taxies which could easily clock 200'000km in few years.
- MrRadar 9y ago
  > The average age of a passenger car in Germany is ~6.7 years. From a US perspective that number is insanely low! The average age of a car in the US was 11.6 years in 2016.[1] The average US driver drives 13.5k miles (21.7 km) per year[2] so that means the average car in the US would have around 156k miles (251k km) on its clock. I wonder if the German number is skewed lower because it's only measuring a relatively wealthy part of the EU. Do most used German cars simply get exported to less wealthy parts of the EU instead of being re-sold within Germany? [1]http://www.autonews.com/article/20161122/RETAIL05/161129973/average-age-of-vehicles-on-road-hits-11.6-years http://www.autonews.com/article/20161122/RETAIL05/161129973/... [2]https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm
rad_gruchalski 9y ago
Leasing?