Stricter regulations, the rise of digital technology and vehicles that are more difficult to repair: after a phone call, the French association points to the growing risk of planned car obsolescence.
Disposable battery
In the report “Stop Planned Obsolescence” (HOP), it calls on public authorities to take action to curb this potentially costly trend for consumers and harmful to the environment, notably by creating a “repairability index” for vehicles.
Paradoxically, the primary cause of automobile obsolescence comes from the desire to make them less polluting: some cities such as Paris have banned the oldest cars from entering, enforcing “many motorists part with old thermal vehicles that are still functional (but polluting)“, what “poses a risk of excluding certain populations“, HOP notes in the introduction.
But while the current business model of buying and maintaining cars is “oil“, guarantee “long healthy life” Many vehicles are at risk of being damaged by the emergence of electric cars,” warns the association, which questions the long-term reliability of batteries and their repairability. It turns out that some are assembled from “so that they cannot be dismantled: therefore the risk “disposable batteries” de facto while these represent” between 30 and 40% of the value of the vehicle“.
Repairability index
Another trend troubling HOP: making new models in factories using very large molded parts instead of assembling dozens of sheets. These features, which are a source of savings and ease for manufacturers, can turn into a nightmare for insurance companies and policyholders: “at the slightest impact, it will be necessary to replace such an important part of the car that it is probably worth scrapping it in the event of an impact”, fears the association.
The one that reached the end of 2022 to launch an investigation by the Paris prosecutor’s office against Apple for making it difficult to repair its smartphones with generic parts, claims that the same problem occurs in current vehicles equipped with electronic chips rejecting “grafts“parts not installed at the factory. HOP also mentions the risk of software obsolescence of very highly digitized vehicles.”
Except ” repairability index” vehicles, the association would like to create” durability and repairability standards for batteries in Europe“, possibly even a ten-year warranty on accumulators and also the removal of obstacles to the use of reused parts.