Reply to post: Auto da fe?

BoJo looks to jumpstart UK economy with £6k taxpayer-funded incentive for Brits to buy electric cars – report

Jellied Eel Silver badge

Auto da fe?

..it leads to a reduction in the availability of middle aged cars to “cascade” down to replace the oldest cars which remain in use.

That's part of the problem for car manufacturers. So back in the good'ol days and the era of Rover, you buy a new car every 3 years because after that it's rusting & falling apart. Or if it was a Range Rover, helping dealers buy their Ferrari collections through service costs.

Modern cars are a lot more reliable, and with average commuting patterns & proper servicing, can run fine for 10yrs or so.. Especially if they're simpler diesels. This is despite the best efforts of the EU to help deterioration via adulterating fuels with 'biofuels'.

But along side that, there was the conversion of manufacturers into finance companies, and pushing PCP/lease deals. Drivers get a new car regularly, but their lease cars get dumped onto the used market regularly, pushing down used car prices. Which is a good thing for drivers given they can get a nearly-new, well maintained car at a deep discount... Especially given the way the ECB has been printing money to lend to BMW/Merc/VAG Finance so they can buy cars from the manufacturing entities and prop up the German car industry.

Now there's the EU (and UK's) push to get people driving modern milk floats.. But they're a lot more expensive than ICE models, so subsidises those via scams like this.. Which I guess could allow savvy people to buy a cheap ICE to get the £6k bung, assuming they can afford £20k+ on the milk float. And like you say, that won't help people with less income, who could in theory benefit from the lower TCO of running an EV. And then there's the question of TCO for used EVs, ie what state the battery might be in if the previous owner's not been nice with their charging cycles. Especially given the battery pack is a substantial part of the total car's cost.

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