Save Energy, Drive An Old Car | Green Energy News

January 16, 2005 – Vol.9 No.43

SAVE ENERGY, DRIVE AN OLD CAR.

A study by R.L. Polk and Co. shows that cars in the U.S. are lasting longer - a record median age of 8.9 years for cars in 2004 up from 7.7 years in 1995. But light trucks (which includes pickup trucks, vans and SUVs) are being scrapped earlier. The median age for light trucks in 2004 was 6.4 years, down from 7.4 years in 1995.

What does this all mean? What’s the relation to green energy?

Cars could be better built, lasting longer than a decade ago, thus the higher median age. People may be forced to keep cars longer because of smaller paychecks, or cars are just getting more expensive so people keep them longer. (Or a combination of factors.)

Light trucks are another story. The continued growth of the new light truck market means more and more light trucks are entering the used truck market. The more used trucks on the market, the cheaper they’ll be. The less value a vehicle has, the earlier it will be scrapped.

And in relation to green energy? It takes a huge amount of energy to build new vehicles - to melt steel, stamp body panels and weld parts together. So, the longer a car or truck stays on the road the fewer new ones need to be built and the less energy, overall, will be consumed.

(Vehicles could easily be designed to last for decades thus dramatically cut down the energy needed to produce them. But, of course, this would remove the planned obsolescence built into every vehicle that rolls off the production line. Automakers want to drag us into the showroom every few years, not every few decades.)

So in terms of news, the analysis of the R.L. Polk study is mixed. Aside from generally better fuel economy, cars with their longer lives are saving energy daily.

But those owning light trucks, with generally worse fuel economy, are replacing them more often meaning more need to be built and more energy needed to build them.

The trend towards more light trucks on the road is set to continue, unfortunately. R.L. Polk thinks that by 2009 cars will make up 54 percent of the passenger vehicles on the road, light trucks 46 percent. Today cars are 59 percent, light trucks 41 percent.

Visit R.L. Polk at http://www.polk.com/

(Editor’s note: This editor drives a light truck (that gets 30 miles per gallon on the highway) that will be 6 or 7 years old when it’s replaced. Beyond that it will be only a few years from the scrap yard, I would guess. My prior vehicle, a car, which got about the same fuel economy, was scrapped after 14 years of trusty service.)