I think the point is that eventually you have to buy a new one regardless, so regulations ensure that whenever that time comes, whatever you buy (if it's new an

I think the point is that eventually you have to buy a new one regardless, so regulations ensure that whenever that time comes, whatever you buy (if it's new anyway) hits some baseline of efficiency. This sort of thing is the logic behind CAFE [1] for automotive, anyway— it forces all the manufacturers to hit a certain baseline efficiency rather than relying on them to all just be slightly less bad than the other guy (or to ignore efficiency altogether and make up the difference in performance/features/marketing). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy