The 'Scrappage Scheme' graveyard

[ralphy]

Perhaps naively, I thought they'd been scrapped as in crushed.

(For the sheer scale, jump to the drone footage at 13:44).



R

[walkerwek1958]

Interesting! I can’t remember the details of the scrapage scheme, can’t even remember when it ran and what the objectives were. It’s clear that many of the old cars have value as parts donors so it makes sense that they should be stripped for parts. Was the location revealed? I may have missed it

I’m surprised that Land Rovers, MGs and Beetles were ever worth more under the scrappage scheme than their market price. MGBs can still be rebuilt using new shells, but you need a registration document and donor car (regardless of condition) to do this. Seems a shame that several MGs have been de-registered and scrapped in this way, but I guess the numbers aded up correctly at the time.

[David_D]

That’s criminal. Lots of useful parts - if not functional complete vehicles. Can’t believe that’s environmentally positive.

[Velorum]

More incompetent and illogical thinking by the 'live in the moment' politicians.

Being as most of the ecological impact caused by a car is during its manufacture it makes sense to keep them going for as long as possible not incentivise people to discard perfectly serviceable vehicles to stimulate the creation of new ones.

[Dave+63]

I recall a lot of examples of classic cars being traded in as part of the scrappage scheme and the dismay it caused amongst classic car appreciators.

I think in many cases Paul, the numbers didn’t add up but the owners of the vehicles didn’t know otherwise.

I remember actually seeing an MGC and an Audi Quattro that a dealership had taken in as part of the scheme and there was absolutely nothing anyone could do about it.

[Dave O'Sullivan]

It wasn't anything to do with being environmentally friendly imo. It was simply the governments way of giving the new car market a boost.
Silly and wasteful really.

[number2]

It wasn't anything to do with being environmentally friendly imo. It was simply the governments way of giving the new car market a boost.
Silly and wasteful really.

^^^^ this entirely ^^^^

[adrianw]

we were encouraged to supposedly scrap our cars to buy diesels, and then those that look after us changed their minds and diesels are no good, and we fall far it every time, it is all about money, I wonder what is next in this fiasco, we have not and have not planned the capacity to run electric cars, yet they are now encouraging and inducing us to buy them.

Bruntingthorpe have stopped doing most of the speed events so they can store returned cars for lease companies.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2251/3...eea05bc5_b.jpg

It is madness

[Velorum]

It wasn't anything to do with being environmentally friendly imo. It was simply the governments way of giving the new car market a boost.
Silly and wasteful really.

And reap the additional tax income from each new one sold of course.

[33JS]

And reap the additional tax income from each new one sold of course.

Absolutely!!!!! It's mental!

[tz-uk73]

Those 2 photos are incredible. What a crazy situation.

This will be the driver for such bargain second hand cars now. I haven’t run a new car for 12 years now, and I’d have to be very wealthy or stupid to run a new car when you price up a 3 year old example. I’ve friends who spend £700 plus to lease new Audi’s and volvo’s.....seriously £9k a year when you can buy the same car a few years old for a fraction of that. Like I say, wealthy or haven’t done the numbers.

[notnowkato]

we were encouraged to supposedly scrap our cars to buy diesels, and then those that look after us changed their minds and diesels are no good, and we fall far it every time, it is all about money, I wonder what is next in this fiasco, we have not and have not planned the capacity to run electric cars, yet they are now encouraging and inducing us to buy them.

Bruntingthorpe have stopped doing most of the speed events so they can store returned cars for lease companies.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2251/3...eea05bc5_b.jpg

It is madness

Manheim run many auctions from the Bruntingthorpe site, also there are some interesting old Cold War era planes there, moldering away.

[Ventura]

Really, really sad. Almost heartbreaking. Really unbelievable how reactionary and spur of the moment these policies are done and tax lining for the treasury. It's a bit of common sense even with the bin bags/plastics. Populations grow so there was bound to be more plastics etc. Should plan for these things that have a large uptake e.g. cars, plastics, paper, fish...

[Tooks]

Whilst a lover of most things automotive, I just can’t get myself worked up to be too sorry about a load of old (and let’s be honest more than likely beyond economic repair) potential death traps being off the road.

As long as they’re recycled properly either back to raw materials and/or spares to keep similar cars going a bit longer then I don’t see many downsides.

There will always be the odd exception and no doubt the odd beautiful great condition old classic is amongst them, but not many I’d imagine.

[notnowkato]

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Br...93!4d-1.131193

Blimey, that's a bit of a car park .....

[ralphy]

Interesting! I can’t remember the details of the scrapage scheme, can’t even remember when it ran and what the objectives were.

The initial scheme, costing the UK Government £300,000,000 was introduced in 2009 to support the replacement of 300,000 cars purchased.

The Government agreed to provide a £1,000 payment towards the purchase of a new car ordered from participating manufacturers after 23 April 2009 and first registered on or after 16 May 2009 to UK residents who also scrap a car that they have owned for more than twelve months, was older than ten years and manufacturers agreed to also provide £1,000 off the list price.

It ran for 3 years, iirc.

R

[paulpsz008]

I’m surprised that Land Rovers, MGs and Beetles were ever worth more under the scrappage scheme than their market price. MGBs can still be rebuilt using new shells, but you need a registration document and donor car (regardless of condition) to do this. Seems a shame that several MGs have been de-registered and scrapped in this way, but I guess the numbers aded up correctly at the time.

Many manufacturers also added to the government subsidy so some of the offers where "generous".
The biggest I saw was "£6k Scrappage allowance" from Mazda on low £20's Rx-8s
It was £3-4k off an Mx-5 & about £2k off the more generic cars.

[kace]

Whilst a lover of most things automotive, I just can’t get myself worked up to be too sorry about a load of old (and let’s be honest more than likely beyond economic repair) potential death traps being off the road.

Didn't the cars have to on the road with a mot to qualify?

[vulcangascompany]

Thought this was an amazing photo - apparently VW have many sites across the US like this of all the reacquired VWs in the light of the emissions scandal all these sitting in the Californian desert. Mind blowing!!

[Foxy100]

Whilst a lover of most things automotive, I just can’t get myself worked up to be too sorry about a load of old (and let’s be honest more than likely beyond economic repair) potential death traps being off the road.

Shouldn't you be on the Prince Philip thread?

[ralphy]

I think we will be seeing another car scrappage scheme in the not-too-distant future*, one which will rely heavily on MOT failures and specifically on emissions.

* Dependant on the state of our government in the future of course.

R

[Tooks]

Didn't the cars have to on the road with a mot to qualify?

I seem to remember they did, but an MOT doesn’t necessarily mean they were in great condition cosmetically.

A 20 year old car won’t be as crashworthy as anything newer either.

Shouldn't you be on the Prince Philip thread?

I’ve no idea, should I?

[Jeremy67]

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Br...93!4d-1.131193

Blimey, that's a bit of a car park .....

Nice to see the unique profile of a Victor and it took me a few seconds to work out that the very strange shape next to it was a Super Guppy.

Bruntingthorpe is owned by David Walton who is a huge aviation enthusiast.

[Andyg]

I wonder if anyone has done a comparison between the total pollution generating in making a brand new hybrid and running it 50,000 miles and that of say a 10 year old car, fixing it up to run within spec and running that over 50,000 miles.

Perhaps if we really want to to save the planet we should be recycling our cars and getting more life out of them, but I doubt the manufacturers would thank us.

[Tooks]

I wonder if anyone has done a comparison between the total pollution generating in making a brand new hybrid and running it 50,000 miles and that of say a 10 year old car, fixing it up to run within spec and running that over 50,000 miles.

Perhaps if we really want to to save the planet we should be recycling our cars and getting more life out of them, but I doubt the manufacturers would thank us.

If we really wanted to save the planet, we wouldn’t drive at all, or we’d cut it drastically. That and a lot of other things...

There have been plenty of studies on the environmental impact of building and running a new car vs keeping an old one going, as Google will attest.

As a rule of thumb, it takes the equivalent energy of running a car for a year over average miles to actually build it.

Given that new vehicles emit at least 20% less than old cars (the UKs vehicle average age is 8 years I read somewhere), you can see they pay back quite quickly.

[alfat33]

As a rule of thumb, it takes the equivalent energy of running a car for a year over average miles to actually build it.

Given that new vehicles emit at least 20% less than old cars (the UKs vehicle average age is 8 years I read somewhere), you can see they pay back quite quickly.

I’d always believed that as much energy goes into building a car as running a car over it’s lifetime. Our Sustainability Manager at work said much the same to me last week. I found this article which is admittedly 8 years old, but it is written by Mike Berners-Lee who seems to have some credibility in this (green) field. It is about carbon emissions but I think that is pretty much equivalent to energy usage.

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...tprint-new-car

Buying a new large electric 4x4 seems like the worst option to save the planet.

I have a 17 year old car that I drive less than 3000 miles a year in. It is meticulously maintained. 95% of my travel is on public transport. Despite that, I pay punitive car tax and residents parking charges, which would melt away if I scrapped it for one of those new electric 4x4s; the manufacture of which would probably use more energy than deiving my car will in the next 20 years.

I’m no expert and happy to be corrected, but it does all seem back to front to me.

[Tooks]

I’d always believed that as much energy goes into building a car as running a car over it’s lifetime. Our Sustainability Manager at work said much the same to me last week. I found this article which is admittedly 8 years old, but it is written by Mike Berners-Lee who seems to have some credibility in this (green) field. It is about carbon emissions but I think that is pretty much equivalent to energy usage.

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...tprint-new-car

Buying a new large electric 4x4 seems like the worst option to save the planet.

I have a 17 year old car that I drive less than 3000 miles a year in. It is meticulously maintained. 95% of my travel is on public transport. Despite that, I pay punitive car tax and residents parking charges, which would melt away if I scrapped it for one of those new electric 4x4s; the manufacture of which would probably use more energy than deiving my car will in the next 20 years.

I’m no expert and happy to be corrected, but it does all seem back to front to me.

For your use case, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to replace it with a new electric or any other car. If you’re driving 12-15k a year, the sums change.

Cars are manufactured a lot more efficiently than they were even 10 years ago.

There are plenty of other reasons to run a new car over an old one, safety being just one. It’s inportant that old cars are recycled properly too, and new ones are made with far more recycled or sustainable products than old ones as well.

Tailpipe pollutants are lower with new vehicles, Nox/CO2/etc, which helps local air quality (one of the benefits of EVs really, however they’re charged).

Cars are but a relatively small part of our unsustainable lifestyles though, but I guess we should do what we can.

But anyway, I’ve finished my lentils for breakfast now, and about to cycle to work... Not!

[Andyg]

If we really wanted to save the planet, we wouldn’t drive at all, or we’d cut it drastically. That and a lot of other things...

There have been plenty of studies on the environmental impact of building and running a new car vs keeping an old one going, as Google will attest.

As a rule of thumb, it takes the equivalent energy of running a car for a year over average miles to actually build it.

Given that new vehicles emit at least 20% less than old cars (the UKs vehicle average age is 8 years I read somewhere), you can see they pay back quite quickly.

i couldn't find this, but did find a report that suggested

Producing a medium-sized new car costing £24,000 may generate more than 17 tonnes of CO2e – almost as much as three years' worth of gas and electricity in the typical UK home.

The upshot is that – despite common claims to contrary – the embodied emissions of a car typically rival the exhaust pipe emissions over its entire lifetime. Indeed, for each mile driven, the emissions from the manufacture of a top-of-the-range Land Rover Discovery that ends up being scrapped after 100,000 miles may be as much as four timeshigher than the tailpipe emissions of a Citroen C1.
With this in mind, unless you do very high mileage or have a real gas-guzzler, it generally makes sense to keep your old car for as long as it is reliable – and to look after it carefully to extend its life as long as possible. If you make a car last to 200,000 miles rather than 100,000, then the emissions for each mile the car does in its lifetime may drop by as much as 50%, as a result of getting more distance out of the initial manufacturing emissions.

[Tooks]

i couldn't find this, but did find a report that suggested

Producing a medium-sized new car costing £24,000 may generate more than 17 tonnes of CO2e – almost as much as three years' worth of gas and electricity in the typical UK home.

The upshot is that – despite common claims to contrary – the embodied emissions of a car typically rival the exhaust pipe emissions over its entire lifetime. Indeed, for each mile driven, the emissions from the manufacture of a top-of-the-range Land Rover Discovery that ends up being scrapped after 100,000 miles may be as much as four timeshigher than the tailpipe emissions of a Citroen C1.
With this in mind, unless you do very high mileage or have a real gas-guzzler, it generally makes sense to keep your old car for as long as it is reliable – and to look after it carefully to extend its life as long as possible. If you make a car last to 200,000 miles rather than 100,000, then the emissions for each mile the car does in its lifetime may drop by as much as 50%, as a result of getting more distance out of the initial manufacturing emissions.

Ricardo Engineering have recently studied lifetime emissions of vehicles from design to end of life. Autocar cover it in this article.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/i...o2-legislation

It talks about 70-80% of a vehicles lifetime CO2 emissions being emitted during its ‘working life’ of 93000 miles.

Clearly then, the less fuel you burn the better, and the smaller the design and manufacturing footprint the better etc etc.

We probably don’t need an engineering company to tell us that though.

Whatever the actual answer, it’s clear that a few classic cars being run a few thousand miles a year are not the main issue.

[Andyg]

Ricardo Engineering have recently studied lifetime emissions of vehicles from design to end of life. Autocar cover it in this article.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/i...o2-legislation

It talks about 70-80% of a vehicles lifetime CO2 emissions being emitted during its ‘working life’ of 93000 miles.

Clearly then, the less fuel you burn the better, and the smaller the design and manufacturing footprint the better etc etc.

We probably don’t need an engineering company to tell us that though.

Whatever the actual answer, it’s clear that a few classic cars being run a few thousand miles a year are not the main issue.

I certainly agree with your last paragraph.

However given that 20-30% of emissions come from production and decommissioning, then surely much of this could be saved if less cars were build and decommissioned in the first place and car became "less disposable"

Plus I don't really understand why they used 93k as the average life of a car. Surely it more like 140-150m these days.