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What's crazy about 875,000 miles? Most personal gasoline cars last approximately 200,000 miles, but people rarely keep them that long because for the average d

What's crazy about 875,000 miles? Most personal gasoline cars last approximately 200,000 miles, but people rarely keep them that long because for the average driver the car is 10-20 years old. The interior will wear out long before the engine. If the car manufacturers built the drivetrain to last 400,000 miles, they would just be wasting money. If the car is running 24/7 at 30 mph, you would top 250k miles per year. I imagine they will design the cars to last more than a year, potentially a few, so 750,000 miles is not off the table. Also in the world where a car is an autonomous income producing asset, initial cost matters a lot less and total lifetime cost matters a lot more. Businesses will do the math and buy vehicles that minimize their cost. Automotive engineers will put more effort into reliability because fleet owners will have data to measure. It's a different world. A lot of our current assumptions will get rethought.

eru 11y ago
Of course you won't see 24/7 usage on most cars, just like you don't see 24/7 usage on all electrical power stations. Unless someone finds an economic activity that you can throw basically unlimited car-hours at in the night time. The yield can be low, but it has to be higher than the variable cost of one more car hour.
- monort 11y ago
  Surplus of night time car-hours can support a market for cheap delivery.
  - eru 11y ago
    I thought about that, too. But I'm not sure whether that's not done better and cheaper by more specialised vehicles (eg trucks)?
phillc73 11y ago
I find it hard to imagine a conventional petrol powered car only lasting 200,000 miles. Which manufacturers only build cars to last 200,000 miles? I can't think of a car I, or my family, have owned which hasn't lasted at least twice that long. My current car is a 2002 BMW E39 530D. It has almost 900,000 kms on the clock and is still going strong on the original engine. The cloth interior is still in quite reasonable condition. There has of course been the need for minor maintenance (rear shocks were required at the last inspection). Right now I need new door seals and there is some minor rust attended to. However, at a consumption of approximately 7 liters per 100 km on the autobahn, I don't see any need to buy a newer car for quite some time yet.
- yetihehe 11y ago
  I had 2001 Suzuki Swift MKII 1.3. I think it had 65,000km on odometer in 2007 when I bought it, but can't be sure because odometer was only going to 99,999km. Now at (1)24,000km it's still going but I had to weld chassis or it would snap in half. Engine is still in very good condition though, only minor expected fixes were required. But yes, Suzuki DOES make cars which are not expected to last more than 100,000km. I've also recently got 2004 Opel Astra H which had already 209,000km and it's in perfect condition both engine and body, so YMMV.
- erikpukinskis 11y ago
  In some sense, if a vehicle is well built, properly maintained, and driven gently, it will last forever. You just replace the car part by part over time. The issue is if it's poorly maintained or it's abused, or if it's not well built. And a sizable percentage of cars in the fleet fall into at least one of those categories. The number that we need to worry about from a policy perspective is not the life of the car in the best case scenario, it's the life of the car in the expected scenario.

eru 11y ago

Of course you won't see 24/7 usage on most cars, just like you don't see 24/7 usage on all electrical power stations. Unless someone finds an economic activity that you can throw basically unlimited car-hours at in the night time. The yield can be low, but it has to be higher than the variable cost of one more car hour.

monort 11y ago
Surplus of night time car-hours can support a market for cheap delivery.
- eru 11y ago
  I thought about that, too. But I'm not sure whether that's not done better and cheaper by more specialised vehicles (eg trucks)?

phillc73 11y ago

I find it hard to imagine a conventional petrol powered car only lasting 200,000 miles. Which manufacturers only build cars to last 200,000 miles? I can't think of a car I, or my family, have owned which hasn't lasted at least twice that long. My current car is a 2002 BMW E39 530D. It has almost 900,000 kms on the clock and is still going strong on the original engine. The cloth interior is still in quite reasonable condition. There has of course been the need for minor maintenance (rear shocks were required at the last inspection). Right now I need new door seals and there is some minor rust attended to. However, at a consumption of approximately 7 liters per 100 km on the autobahn, I don't see any need to buy a newer car for quite some time yet.

yetihehe 11y ago
I had 2001 Suzuki Swift MKII 1.3. I think it had 65,000km on odometer in 2007 when I bought it, but can't be sure because odometer was only going to 99,999km. Now at (1)24,000km it's still going but I had to weld chassis or it would snap in half. Engine is still in very good condition though, only minor expected fixes were required. But yes, Suzuki DOES make cars which are not expected to last more than 100,000km. I've also recently got 2004 Opel Astra H which had already 209,000km and it's in perfect condition both engine and body, so YMMV.
erikpukinskis 11y ago
In some sense, if a vehicle is well built, properly maintained, and driven gently, it will last forever. You just replace the car part by part over time. The issue is if it's poorly maintained or it's abused, or if it's not well built. And a sizable percentage of cars in the fleet fall into at least one of those categories. The number that we need to worry about from a policy perspective is not the life of the car in the best case scenario, it's the life of the car in the expected scenario.