When was the last time you visited a breakers yard?
Years ago vehicles were there because they were riddled with rust or had genuinely reached the end of their economic life. Not so today. Many vehicles are there not because they are beyond economical repair or have become dangerous but because of a consumer driven society that has been conditioned to think that they have to replace their vehicles every three years. Once over that three year mark these vehicles are considered to be on the slippery slope to the scrapper and the sooner the better as far as goverments and industry are concerned.
Older cars don't rust much any more so why not encourage owners to service them properly and if necessary require them to have them reconditioned. Chips or ECUs were produced in the first place so can be again. An alternative industry could flourish with the entirely green purpose of prolonging the life of an object which has already been produced and has therefore long since created it's own manufacturing carbon footprint. Why create even more pollution by first scrapping it and then making another even more resource hungry "environmentally friendly" EV that requires an entirely new world wide infrastructure to support it and it's like? Instead we have incentives like the moronic car scrappage scheme that gets trotted out from time to time. A scheme that has seen hundreds of thousands of cars scrapped at enormous cost to the tax payer. Why? Because it supports the drive to replace them with vehicles which are apparently so much more environmentally friendly!
As for my current car not lasting forever, well you are right, everything returns to the earth eventually. However, in the mean time I own six vehicles, they are 114, 111, 100, 19, 4 and 4 years old respectively and are all in full working order. The one that gets used the most is my late father's 19 year old Skoda Fabia 1.4 tdi diesel hatch. It has long since paid it's carbon dues, doesn't depreciate, costs very little to run, averages 60+ mpg and fulfills the same function as any other car EV or ICE on a daily basis. Parts are plentiful and ridiculously cheap and it runs like a dream. There is no reason why it can't continue to run for many years/decades to come and yet this is the very sort of vehicle that Governments want us to scrap and replace with new EVs. I sincerely believe that there is a place for EVs but IMO the drive to phase out ICE vehicles in order to replace them with an alternative EV fleet and infrastructure will prove both short sighted and extremely costly to the environment and our pockets.
As for taxing by the mile, yes I have to agree, that will eventually happen. However, if anyone is naïve enough to think that it will replace VED then they should think again. Instead, it will likely be reincarnated as a nominal annual registration fee. That fee will be minimal at first but will steadily climb year by year thus creating another healthy income stream for the exchequer.
