Nick Palmer wrote:
It is certainly easier to maintain older cars economically for longer.
I do not think so! I spent a lot of time in the 1960s maintaining VW engines, and it was not easy or cheap. In the 1950s and 60s automobiles seldom lasted more than five years or 50,000 miles. The warranties were for 20,000 miles as I recall. Nowadays you can even get an extended warranty for 10 years or 100,000 miles, and many people I know keep their cars for 150,000 miles or more.
Despite the myths, old automotive technology was not reliable, not good, and it was grossly inefficient, polluting, harder to drive and much more dangerous in accidents.
The overall cost of owning an automobile relative to inflation has fallen a great deal since the 1950s. The direct cost of the automobile itself is higher, but other costs are much lower. They include the cost of fuel per mile, insurance, maintenance, the owner's cost of recovering from accidents (apart from the amount paid by insurance directly), and so on.
SUVs are an abomination, but ordinary passenger cars are much improved.
When many of today's hyper efficient hyper complex cars get old, it may be impossible to economically maintain them much earlier than the older, simpler type of designs.
The motor is guaranteed for 100,000 miles and the batteries for 200,000 miles. Toyota pays the full cost of any repair or replacements. So it is already better than the "older, simpler designs." Even if the motor is reduced to junk after the warranty expires (which will certainly not be the case) it will still be a better deal than a 1965 auto engine.
When they get junked, the "embodied energy" of manufacture will be lost that much sooner.
There is no more embodied energy in a hybrid engine and a conventional one. Actually, because the motor weighs less and it is smaller, there is less material in it and probably less embodied energy. Heavyweight steel has been replaced by clever engineering. In any case, nearly every kilogram of material from a modern automobile is recycled, so the embodied energy used to refine the raw materials (the iron ore) is never lost. The energy used to fabricate the car is lost, but this is a function of the longevity of the machine, and modern cars last twice as long as older ones did.
If embodied energy really is a problem, we could engineer automobiles that last 20 years instead of 10, or even 50 years. Rolls-Royce automobiles with original equipment still work after a century. Of course such cars would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each. It is a matter of trading off different costs. Wind turbine mechanical equipment has a much heavier duty cycle than automobile engines, but it lasts for 20 years. Danish engineers say that an automobile or truck engine built to the turbine specifications would last 50 years easily. I think it would be a very bad idea to make cars that last 20 years. The technology improves so quickly that a 20-year-old vehicle fleet would be a millstone around our necks. It would be like having 20-year-old computers, except that not only would they be obsolete, they would also pollute, make far too much noise, and kill people in inordinate numbers.
As far as global warming goes one has to remember that there are two stages to worry about. First, the slow increase of temperature leading to a statistical increase in storms, droughts and flooding etc. I doubt if it is philosophically possible to prove that this is happening now or will happen.
"Philosophical" is a strange choice of words in this context. The Japanese Ministry of environment and the Weather Department have no difficulty measuring the immediate signs of global warming, including the temperature rise in the Pacific Ocean, the rise of the Inland Sea, the frequency and severity of storms, and the onset of spring flowering, which is coming about a week earlier than it did in the past, everywhere in the world. Whether this global warming is caused by carbon dioxide or some natural cycle is debatable, but there is no doubt whatever that it is occurring.
- Jed
