Thread: All discussions relating to the Defenders end of production

Originally Posted by Pickles2

99.99........% of the world,.....etc etc,......man, what are you smokn'......I want some.
Pickles.

Diesel, no DPF (unfiltered). 77.777777% on aulro are smok'n it old school!

Originally Posted by jon3950

Yes they have. Rangie Classic, Discos 1 & 2 and P38A were all hampered by a lack of funding. BMW came in and funded the L322 because it suited them with the development of the X5. Same thing with Ford and the Disco 3, they wanted to push the brand upmarket and need something better than the then outdated Disco 2 to sit under Range Rover.

Fair enough not believing their spin, they do need to **** or get off the pot. The fact that the release date keeps getting pushed out is a concern. However everything you have heard is rumour. There are no concrete facts out there. I have several good contacts within JLR, both here and in the UK. I can tell you there is nothing coming out of that project team, apart from proposed release dates. When the replacement is released, and I'm pretty certain there will be a replacement, I don't think you will be proved wrong from your point of view.

I think what you want the replacement to be ignores the commercial reality of the world we currently live in. Vehicle design is in the process of making a paradigm shift to shorter life, recyclable, low impact vehicles - and I think the world will be better for it. This doesn't sit well with your requirement for a vehicle that will last forever.

Cheers,
Jon

Actually this is not true, a vehicle that has a long service life is far more green than one that is scrapped after a decade or so. When any car is made even so called new green models the steel needs to be smelted, the plastics made,actually it takes a huge amount of energy to make a car and a lot of carbon emitted just to make the car. Like a carbon debt if you like..
The reality is many modern green 'low impact' cars are not used for long enough before they are scrapped for that debt to balance out ie for the fact that they are low emissions to be worth while in the overall carbon emissions of the car.
Land Rovers however like the Defender may emit more in use but they have a very long service life which actually make them very green indeed. We need to stop kidding ourselves, how green is a little town car when in 10 years it is crushed to a cube? In my local dump there is a wall of crushed cars leaking oil and other rubbish, most are not that old, not green at all.
Chris

Originally Posted by cafe latte

Actually this is not true, a vehicle that has a long service life is far more green than one that is scrapped after a decade or so. When any car is made even so called new green models the steel needs to be smelted, the plastics made,actually it takes a huge amount of energy to make a car and a lot of carbon emitted just to make the car. Like a carbon debt if you like..
The reality is many modern green 'low impact' cars are not used for long enough before they are scrapped for that debt to balance out ie for the fact that they are low emissions to be worth while in the overall carbon emissions of the car.
Land Rovers however like the Defender may emit more in use but they have a very long service life which actually make them very green indeed. We need to stop kidding ourselves, how green is a little town car when in 10 years it is crushed to a cube? In my local dump there is a wall of crushed cars leaking oil and other rubbish, most are not that old, not green at all.
Chris

I'm inclined to agree with what you're saying Chris, although I've had this discussion with an environmental scientist who thinks the opposite. I think in reality it's a fairly complex argument and would depend on which vehicle you chose and what assumptions you made about it's usage.

Either way that's referring to vehicle manufacture as it has been. I am talking about vehicle manufacturing as it will be in 10 or 20 years from now. For example, the push by JLR to aluminium chassis is not just about weight saving, but about recyclability. More emphasis is being put on product life cycle costs and an obligation on the part of manufacturers to take the vehicle back at end-of-life. This is going to change how vehicles are made and the whole process of ownership.

Cheers,
Jon

The main reason JLR are currently successful is because they are focussed on selling very expensive cars into a very wealthy and wasteful economy which has very little concern for the environment. The whole idea of producing an aluminium body and chassis that is disposable and recyclable in the short term makes a mockery of the anti-rust longevity attributes of aluminium in the first place.

None of the above addresses the reasons why JLR has not been serious about updating the Defender, except that the market they have chosen to prioritise are those who are so wealthy they don't need to consider vehicle longevity or the environment. A culture of elite leases renewed on new vehicles every three years does not absolve JLR from totally dropping the ball on Defender, no matter how recyclable it may never be.

Originally Posted by cafe latte

Like a carbon debt if you like..
The reality is many modern green 'low impact' cars are not used for long enough before they are scrapped for that debt to balance out ie for the fact that they are low emissions to be worth while in the overall carbon emissions of the car.

What you're referring to is known as "Embodied Energy" and it is absolutely a very important factor in the 'greenness' of a vehicle, and it definitely strikes me that car service lives are very short. I think though that Jon makes some very good points regarding the direction of vehicle materials and handling in the future. More and more manufacturers are using recycled materials in their vehicles, and tyres and lead-acid batteries are incredibly successfully recycled. It would be good to see recycled materials used more and with longer service lives, as MrLandy mentions

Slightly off topic, but one area that many cite as a negative aspect of electric vehicles is that the batteries contain a bunch of valuable metals (nickel, manganese, cobalt, etc.) which require energy to mine, process, and manufacture, however lith-ion batteries are 100% recyclable which can make the batteries much more green. Though, as Jon said, it is a very complicated issue, as at the moment the Lithium is not widely recycled due to the low cost of lithium brine extraction (note; the other valuable metals are recycled). Whether lithium prices will rise enough to make lithium recycling economically viable remains to be seen, but with the way battery use is going it is expected there's a good chance it'll happen.

What do you lot think of the idea of an electric Defender? Before you jump down my throat, I'm well aware that battery tech is not at the stage that it could serve as a touring vehicle, but as an on site HD vehicle where range is not an issue there's a number of advantages:
- Low profile batteries lining the floor -> low center of gravity
- Small drivetrain frees up a huge amount of space
- Huge potential for a wide variety of modular body styles. With a ladder chassis consisting of a flat bed of batteries and integrated drivetrain you could put whatever you wanted on top. Forward control etc.
- Huge low down torque
- Very cheap to run with low maintenance. Electric drivetrains are far more simple than ICE vehicles.

Electric defender would be the best IF

- diesel generator for extended outback milage 500km+ per tank.
- 250km+ battery range fully loaded
- electric hub motors, one per wheel, fully submersible, three can fail one will get you home.
- 16" wheels
- built to last

No gears, no diff locks required, no drive line to break. It would be fantastic!

Something like this maybe? Land Rover's first Electric Defender put through its paces


Wolf