Cars should last longer, says Stellantis. Now they make their own cars, so they can take care of that themselves.
Strange but true: cars are not built to last forever. Mercedes-Benz did it in the 1970s and 1980s. The problem is that people wait too long to buy a new car. As a result, Mercedes under the direction of Jürgen Schrempp made a lot more profit in the 1990s.
Sales prices remained the same, but production and development costs fell dramatically. And despite a few well-known issues (rust, failing electronics, falling A-Classes), Mercedes-Benz still has a great image.
Stellantis wants cars to last longer
At Stellantis they think in the opposite direction. Alison Jones (head of circular economy Stellantis) reports this Coach. Like many other companies, Stellantis wants to work as environmentally friendly as possible and build cars that are as environmentally friendly as possible (within budget, of course). One of the ways to save the environment is to build better cars. That’s what Stellantis intends to consider.
That’s because today’s cars are designed to last 12 years. That’s not long enough. To save the environment, cars must be built in such a way that they can last at least 15 years. This is of course an average, if you have a 16 year old car, it can still do just fine.
Reuse
Another way to save the environment is to focus even more on the reuse of existing parts. According to Stellantis, that can be quadrupled. There are plenty of cars that are on the scrapyard with parts that can still be reused. Not so much for new cars, perhaps, but to give the parts a second life as ‘refurbished’ items. This has been common practice for tech products for years.
But then of course you think: better cars mean fewer replacements, so fewer sales. And you know, you saw that right! Stellantis wants to focus more on producing and selling parts so that the cars last longer. In this way, Stellantis still generates turnover, while protecting the environment.
Stellantis can make a big difference here, because the group has no less than 14 brands under its umbrella: Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Citroën, Chrysler, Dodge, DS Automobiles, Fiat, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, Ram and Vauxhall.
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