Posted on 07/14/2024 4:31:48 AM PDT by karpov
People get nostalgic about their first set of wheels, but those fond memories probably miss an important detail—they were often pieces of junk. Auto dealers didn’t mind.
Back in 1976, when cars on American roads were just 6.2 years old on average, new car sales accounted for nearly 10% of car registrations. As of 2019, when the average car age had doubled, more consumers were able to hold on to their cars longer or opt for used ones. By then, the share of new vehicle sales had fallen to 6.4% of registrations.
Could electric vehicles bring back those glory days of brisk sales and rapid obsolescence? In some ways, EVs resemble cellphones: Technology on them keeps improving rapidly and they are powered by batteries that degrade over time and depreciate quickly.
It is still early days. EVs make up 6.8% of U.S. auto sales but just over 1% of light-duty vehicles today. As they become a bigger part of the fleet, they could once again rev up dealers’ business—through not only faster replacement cycles but also more frequent repairs. While EVs have fewer mechanical parts, a recent study from J.D. Power showed that owners of battery EVs and plug-in hybrids took their new vehicles to the dealership for repairs at a rate three times higher than gas-powered vehicle owners did.
One reason to think EVs could accelerate replacement cycles: EV technology is improving a lot more quickly than technology for gasoline-fueled cars, which have been getting optimized for at least a century.
“The incremental improvement you see every year on [gas cars] is relatively small. When you look at incremental improvement on EV technology, that’s actually quite phenomenal, especially the battery but also the energy management in the vehicle,” said Philipp Kampshoff
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
It takes a lot of resources to build an EV, so frequently replacing EVs would be bad for the environment and expensive for consumers. Biden's gasoline-powered car ban through EPA dictate needs to be reversed.
I can’t wait to buy a car that sends me to the dealer for maintenance and repairs three times as often.
Lol.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, oh, they’re series.
Yeah, they are, LOL!
dreaming...............
At first I thought this was the Babylon Bee.
Is the WSJ so stupid they think high maintenance and rapid obsolescence is a good thing?
Look that American reporter name
JeeJoo Lee
Those darn Mayflower Lees .
The CCP has deep plants at the Murdochs WSJ .
How nice .
As they become a bigger part of the fleet,
I guess Hertz didn’t get that memo while they’re to get rid of all the ones they bought.
Could electric vehicles bring back those glory days of brisk sales and rapid obsolescence?
No.
Cars were also a lot cheaper then, relatively speaking and most people were comfortable budgeting for a car payment, even 2.
EV’s represent a ridiculous waste of money, increased hassle and endless aggravation for less mobility and convenience. Now that the early adopters have theirs, sales will slow to a trickle.
And this next applies to all cars: I do not want my car talking to the cloud, sending info location or none of that. That’s the so called tech advancements they are talking about and it will not end well at all.
I’ll keep my old cars and keep fixing them...We will have a Cuban car culture.
It astounds me how much they don’t realize people are broke.
Come on, the vast majority of Chinese-Americans are not CCP plants.
I am retired and doing fine but there is no way I plan to spend my time or money running back and forth to the dealership doing car repairs because the new vehicle is a piece of junk.
I am not a car person—I want low maintenance, low hassle, long reliable life out of a car.
That is it.
I average about 4k miles per year. So I would get what, maybe 50k miles out of batteries that cost thousands of dollars to replace? That’s worse than the glory days the WSJ is talking about.
Columnist - The Wall Street Journal · Full-time
The Wall Street Journal · Full-time Apr 2020 - Present · 4 yrs 4 mos New York, New York, United States
I write about energy and retail for Heard on the Street, the Wall Street Journal's financial and economic analysis column.
AND, she went to Cornell and was on the school newspaper. So she seems over-qualified to let us peons know how things are supposed to be in her world.
After all, if she works in Manhattan, she probably lives in Manhattan. Do people like that even own cars, or have a driver's license?
She went to the Cornell indoctrination center, not to college
Did she get into the US via Cornell ?
Thats the CCP Plants route to infiltrate our lefty media .
Murdoch media is a globalist lefty bee hive .
“That New Car Smell.”
ICYMI, That fragrance comes in a spray can now.
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