Quote Originally Posted by JDNSW View Post
My case might be atypical, but it is (to me at least) a clear indication of the direction we ought to be moving. There is no technical reason why an efficient diesel car cannot be made to last many years (in fact indefinitely, particularly if it is built similarly to the Landrover). The advances in automotive technology are really very slow - the fact that the Defender still sells is a clear enough indication of this.

I am not clear why I should recycle the 2a - a replacement would have to last me a long time to reach a breakeven on the manufacturing emissions, and since the mileage is low, the emissions from use are also low (which points out the fact that the most direct and cheapest way of reducing transport emissions is to reduce the number of trips)

Perhaps you do not appreciate that the 2a is a farm vehicle and has Primary Producer registration? It just does not do a lot of mileage. Same would apply to my tractor, which is over 40 years old, but probably does less than 50hrs a year.

John
Actually you are quite wrong on the advancement of automotive technology (and fuels). In a short space of time we have gone from 5000 to 10 ppm in diesel. Commonrail high pressure direct injection efi diesels are much more efficient and have orders of magnitude lower emissions than the typical indirect mechanical injection diesel that was the norm in the typical nissota until a few years ago. Not to mention oxy-cats and DPFs.

My point was that the county could do about the same job as the IIA already does, with less emissions - i.e. I was assuming that it could do the job of two vehicles, and the metal in the IIA could be recycled.