A normal car should last at least 30 years

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

We are surrounded by disposable rubbish. Most of the things produced now resemble plastic dishes - the quality is low, they look ugly, they do not last long.

Whether it's the good old days. Some Petersburg apartments are still inhabited by pre-revolutionary oak cabinets. This, I will report to you, is furniture - it's nice to look at, it's nice to touch, while the doors are still opening, and the drawers are still being pulled out, despite even a huge number of perjite moves.

Or, speaking of the more immediate past, the cars of the eighties. "Germans" of those years could sometimes drive a million kilometers on our roads - and not turn into lumbering junk.

And now? I listen with horror to the stories of the owners of new cars. Plastic parts instead of steel, planned leaking hoses, the need to change the half-car at once due to a small breakdown … manufacturers do everything to make the owner of the car want to replace it with a new one in 3-5 years.

See also: Why I don't like new cars

The sabotage of manufacturers is very clearly manifested in printers. Now the standard is electronic cartridges, which simply refuse to print after a certain number of copies: even if the color cartridge "runs out", and I need to print a black-and-white document. It used to be easier when the toner in the cartridge was running out, the printer started printing a little dimmer, and the user did not risk being left without the printer's help at the most important moment.

By the way, they are trying to transfer such greediness to cars. I quote Artemy Lebedev:

I go down the mountain, get into the car, looking forward to a new city, but the car does "j-j-j-j-j-j". The ignition works, but the car will not start. The display reads: "Add Adblu!"

Then I finally understand that it's time to google the meaning of this word. And the Internet does not fail, the meaning immediately becomes very clear: Adblu is urea. Without it, my Audi will not start and will not drive a single kilometer.

It turned out that now new diesel engines in Europe do not run without urea. It is needed to neutralize the supposedly harmful exhaust. Without it, the car would go perfectly according to the laws of physics, but not according to the laws of the EU. If you cut the necessary wiring, then the car will simply run on a diesel engine. That is, it is purely software Jesuitism.

In the end, I called a tow truck, which took me to the dealer, where they poured 20 liters of new urea for 70 euros. Honestly, if I had stalled in the woods, I would not have been able to squeeze so much out of myself into the neck next to the gas tank. But the dealer did.

As a result, the car started up and quietly drove a couple of thousand km.

Computer programs deserve separate warm words. Operating systems that update on their own, thereby delivering significant inconvenience to the user, built-in advertising, deliberate slowdown of programs … in this area, the cunning of the corporation is especially greedy and impudent.

Should society fight the trash plague?

Definitely yes. The problem has already been fairly well studied, and the understanding of the abnormality of the current state of affairs is gradually coming. The French are already slowly forbidding planned obsolescence and other ugly tricks. Russia needs to move in the same direction.

Of course, all changes should be introduced gradually, not in one year or even in 10 years, nevertheless, in the end, we still have to come to do something like the following:

1. Introduce a mandatory guarantee for all goods, while legally establishing a minimum period for such a guarantee.

To give a guarantee for cars, for example, at 15 years, for computers and household appliances - 10 years, for furniture - 20 years.

To insure a guarantee - so that in the event of a manufacturer's bankruptcy, someone will still fulfill the guarantee obligations.

2. Establish strict requirements for maintainability - so that for the sake of replacing frequently failing parts, it is not necessary to disassemble half of the device, and so that it is not necessary to change the entire car engine for the sake of replacing one gear.

It is also necessary to oblige manufacturers to supply spare parts at reasonable prices within two warranty periods - but only if these parts are unique and cannot be replaced with any standard part.

3. Return state standards for everything. The elementary thing is to oblige printer manufacturers to make interchangeable cartridges. Require car manufacturers to make interchangeable parts.

Also oblige manufacturers to maintain backward compatibility - so that a spare part from a 2016 car is suitable for a 1996 car, and vice versa.

I know you will remind me now that Russia does not occupy such a large share in the global economy for corporations to adapt to us … but I'm not saying that these rules should be introduced right tomorrow? You can start by creating internal Russian standards, for example.

4. Strictly prohibit schemes of the type that Microsoft uses now - when the program is not sold to the user, but is given to him “for rent,” and he is forced to pay for it every month. Likewise, mandatory maintenance at car dealerships and the like openly squeezing money should be prohibited.

5. Strongly prohibit all software licensing agreements: this is pure fraud. They are too long, and no alternatives are offered to the user - either agree to everything, or you won't get our program, which may well occupy a monopoly position on the market.

In general, we do not sign any license agreements when we buy, for example, a saw-grinder? And nothing, this somehow does not prevent manufacturers of grinders from defending themselves against claims of buyers who accidentally cut off their limbs.

6. Ban advertisements for predatory consumerism, such as changing your car every three years or buying yourself every new phone model.

I will summarize

One might get the impression that the proposed measures are "draconian" and will drive manufacturers to ruin.

In part, this will be the case: production volumes will fall. It is easy to calculate that if you change a car every 30 years, and not every 3 years, cars will need 10 times less.

However, please take a look around. Do you have everything you need for life, has communism in a single family already arrived? A spacious apartment, good furniture, a reliable and comfortable car, a small yacht and a private jet?

I dare to assume that most of the readers have somewhere else to spend their money. And if manufacturers, instead of producing the current trash, reorient themselves to the production of really necessary things, they will be able to load their capacities, and you and I will be able to unrestrictedly raise our standard of living.

See also:

Planned obsolescence

Planned obsolescence is based on the consumer's desire to purchase a slightly newer product earlier than necessary.

This film will tell you how planned obsolescence has shaped the course of our lives since the 1920s. When manufacturers began to reduce the durability of their products in order to increase consumer demand.