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-   -   China: Abandoned & obsolete electric cars are piling up across cities (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/electric-cars/269464-china-abandoned-obsolete-electric-cars-piling-up-across-cities.html)

According to a media report, old and outdated electric cars in China have started piling up as people are upgrading to more efficient and reliable modern EVs.

The report states that the older lot of EVs have started piling up at automotive graveyards across half a dozen cities across China. These EVs saturated the market initially, both by individuals and ride-hailing companies alike. However, with fewer features and a small driving range per charge (100 miles), these EVs got outdated very quickly.



Now, these automotive graveyards are filled with old electric cars with nobody to look after. The EVs are in such dire conditions that the cars now have plants growing from their engine bays, while others are surrounded by thick vegetation with no escape. While the report doesn't state the exact number of cars, it does talk about a field filled with more than 200 EVs each, with one graveyard also said to have 1000 outdated EVs.

Having said that, the report does mention Geely stating that some of the EVs are being stored there till mid-August; after which the road-worthy models would be put to work across other cities in China.

Source: Bloomberg

Link to Team-BHP news

Well EVs sure are making cars similar to mobile phones and other consumer goods. A new technology makes the previous iteration obsolete and worthless to the owner. Would not be surprised if the same happens in India with the Gen 1 evs - eC3, Tiago, Tigor, XUV400 and older models! We need a concrete plans for old EVs.

I really do hope all batteries get recycled or atleast have regulatory pressure on companies to do that recycling.

having said that I have seen sustainability reports on Lead acid and NMC batteries for complete recycling, yet to see one for LFP batteries.

This is why you have to have a measured approach to EV adoption and incentivise other clean tech like strong hybrids too in parallel. Its also important to recognise that EVs have to be a ‘part’ of the strategy - not an end in totality in itself. Just as power generation is definitely going to be mix of conventional and renewable, cars too will need to be a mix of ICE, strong hybrid and EVs.

Imagine the carbon footprint of producing and then discarding all these EVs. What sense did that make!

The same can happen in India too. When you have cars with range of about 250 to 300 right now be replaced by advanced technology that can increase range to 500 kms, the existing owners will feel the pinch. There should be provisions to carefully replace batteries and mother boards (for tech and features) rather than just dump the cars. TATA or M&M should give that option to buyers starting now. The initiative will increase their customer base and be environmental friendly too.

Just bolsters the argument that EV’s are NOT environmentally friendly. How can the collective intelligence of the whole world (and Greta Thunberg) go so horribly askew?

I think they should advocate keeping the old cars for longer instead of treating cars like appliances and fostering this planned obsolescence and all.

Can consumption driven profit and environment friendliness co-exist? No matter what green technology is adopted, unless the policy makers pay attention to the entire life cycle (sourcing, production, repair & maintenance, years of ownership and disposal), companies are going to find clever hypocritical ways to profit at the expense of the environment and consumers are going to indulge in use-and-throw lifestyle.

I think this has more to do with boom-bust cycle of ride sharing companies in China. We had a similar issue in Bangalore with Yulu/Bounce electric scooters





These pics are from our own Team-BHP thread on abandoned Bounce EVs
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/motor...ml#post4580678

These scooters (India) or cars (China) were designed for ride sharing and has limited appeal among private buyers. So once the companies shutdown or reduced operations, these vehicles piled up everywhere as there was very little demand for these in used vehicle market.

But yes, had these vehicles been powered by petrol or diesel engines, they would have been "resellable". That is the only EV connection here.

Relating this to the repairability norms being enforced in some markets for gadgets / white goods (well, that's what EVs are too), perhaps EV manufacturers should ensure adequate modularisation to aid 'rebuild' or modification to minimise outright scrapping just because the technology has moved on

All the low range models can be wiped out. Urge for latest innovation will create faster phase out for old models.
I was keen to understand what the apporach of makers here.
Ideal case, create backward compatible so that innovation can be like a kit which be added.
But, makers will be keep to sell more automobiles than kits. :)
A good incentive from Govt can encourage makers to consider replacement kits.

What is special about EVs from ICE automobiles or aircrafts. We are already dealing with aircraft boneyards all over the world.

Keep the EVs or ICE automobiles in storage with some maintenance or have their parts removed for reuse or resale and are then finally scrapped.

The various stages of storage and scraping wrt aircrafts is already streamlined and we have to leverage this experience in dealing with automobile boneyards also.

My personal concern is that we can not scrape something just because we can afford to replace it with new one but should think about posterity also as the resources are limited on the planet and must be used carefully.

Laws must be framed to scrape automobiles after end of life and also laws must be framed to punish with fines for scraping before end of life.

Compared to ICEs ? No way. If your problem is with planned obsolescence then get your facts fixed because it was not invented by EV companies. Since the time of the light bulb to the present day phones (manufactured by some silly fruit company) planned obsolescence is something that industrial cartels naturally do

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel


Back to automobiles; is fast fashion some thing specific to EV ? why are OEMs releasing so many variants, face lifts etc for all cars ?


While this is indeed true for all most all things a lot of good will indeed happen if we get rid of ICEs for sure. Of course keep those EVs for as long as possible. But then this culture of fast fashion should be discouraged for almost any mass produced stuff not just EVs.

There are better ways too. Rebuild a solid public transport network based on electric mobility, make cities more cycle friendly, designate and more importantly enforce automobile free zones (with exceptions of physically challenged etc). But ICEs should be phased out just like coal based steam engines. The sooner the better.

To me it feels more like a business model problem :Frustrati, than the technology problem. We also see lot of old ICE cars scooter biting dust somewhere in the parking lots. Off course as most of them are owned individually, owners take pain to sell/scrap vehicles instead of abandoning them.

+1

It seems to be more of a case of a business model / company going bust than rather the EV movement facing issues.

This article (Link) mentions how when a local journalist did some digging at the site (instead of repasting/linking the article/video verbatim), this is what he/they found


The responses on this thread shows how we love to bash EV policies / movement at a drop of a hat. A similar example was the thread that talked about a bunch of cars on a container ship catching fire. In my opinion, EVs are not going to replace all ICE cars, but they are here to stay for sure.

We need to understand that we are not converting to EVs because of climate activists or Greta thunberg, we are transitioning to EVs and Renewables because we are in a climate crisis which unfortunately not realised here.

The phase of Global warming is over, We are in the phase of Global boiling - UN Chief.

Why Power generation will definitely going to be mix of conventional and renewable? Most countries have already started closing down coal plants, there is no reason to continue operating conventional power plants. The science is very clear we can run on 100% renewable + storage, no coal and nuclear plants.

In all likelihood, we will have all conventional power plants closed before 2040, all new cars sold will be EVs by 2035.