Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong
171 comments
·August 6, 2025jbeard4
rendaw
Well the odometer's gotta be the same, right? I reckon the soul of a car resides in the odometer.
yakkers
If it's a mechanical one, there's a possibility that it's been repaired or replaced. The mechanism after all these years will likely wear out. At the same time, I know someone with a car whose odometer has been at 249,999km for a few years now.
As for (early) digital odometers, does the soul more specifically exist in the EEPROM chip in the instrument cluster* that stores the odometer data?
*at least on my late-90s car, this is how the odometer/trip meter works.
jschveibinz
Fun fact: The average replacement rate of cells in our bodies (generally speaking) is around 7 to 10 years. So all of our parts have been replaced several times over...
Retric
Neurons live much longer than that, also not everything is cells. Parts of your teeth for example can be 80+ years old if you keep em that long.
null
vehemenz
The answer isn't as sexy as the question. Ontological questions, and therefore mereological questions, are a matter of convention based on how closely-associated relations—like how the "parts" of the "car" function—cohere over space and time.
comprev
Trigger's broom!
xattt
A bigger question might be is whether the sum of replacement parts is worth less than the sum of the part.
actionfromafar
TCO is more interesting IMHO.
tedk-42
VIN plate removed too? Maybe the engine block is also the original...
physix
When I lived in Germany, in the 90s, I regularly sat in diesel Mercedes Benz taxis with over a million kms under the hood. Private drivers usually. Many had giant mileages.
We used to say (tongue in cheek) that after 250k, the MB diesel engine was broken in. I don't think MB makes them like they used to anymore.
fransje26
Let me wager a guess: Mercedes models W124?
> I don't think MB makes them like they used to anymore.
You guessed correctly. The 1980's W124 was one of those cars that would keep going and going. Mechanically great, with a galvanized chassis and bodywork that made it also pretty rust resistant.
The 1993 version of the W124, supposed to be an "improved" remodeled version of the original car, was a worst car in every aspect. It rusted, the plastics were cheaper, etc.
The follow-up, the W210, is the model that cost MB dearly. Through cost-cutting and greed, they lost a huge chunk of the taxi market. The car itself was also an absolute rust-bucket piece of cr*p, the interior was also worst, with the whole woes compounded by crappy electronics.
MB as a brand hasn't really recovered from that. The engineering excellency, attention to detail, and engineering pride that made those W123/W124 almost unkillable is lost, and won't be found again.
SoftTalker
The W210 was a very good car, the so-called "Camry" of Mercedes-Benz in terms of reliability, except it had one huge problem: rust.
The true "million mile" Mercedes are probably the W123 diesels. Built very solid, they will still rust if you live in areas where road salt is used, but most cars will eventually.
It's weird how some cars are much more prone to rust than others. I had a Toyota truck in the 1980s and it rusted so fast you'd almost swear you could see it happening. Mechanically it never had any problems.
fransje26
> "Camry" of Mercedes-Benz in terms of reliability, except it had one huge problem: rust.
Absolutely. The rust.. The rust..!!
> The true "million mile" Mercedes are probably the W123 diesels.
Yes, for sure. And the W124 diesels.
> It's weird how some cars are much more prone to rust than others
Different levels of anti-rust efforts. Where Mercedes-Benz truly angered their clients, was by coming up with a new model with a lot worse rust properties. (Well, they cut corners on other things as well, like the quality of the interior, but the rust would be the first thing you'd notice.)
MB had the know-how and the processes in place to make a car less susceptible to rust, and just decided to go with the cheaper option, clients and longevity be damned.
jacquesm
One of my sons drives a W210 that has now got well over 300K on it and is still running like new. You can see the plastics are drying out and there is some minor rust in places but it is still a very solid car and likely will continue to run for many years to come. It's the kombi version, 320.
fransje26
Mechanically, it's pretty solid, absolutely. But the rust.. The rust!! And that's an issue the original galvanized W124 didn't have.
bluetomcat
The W210s did indeed rust badly and the interiors weren't on par with previous generations, but in purely mechanical terms, they were still solid cars. The diesels (particularly E250 TD and E290 TD) could cover 700k+ kilometres without any interventions to the engine or the transmission. The W211 is an improvement to the W210 in almost every aspect, and they are still plentiful on the roads in Eastern Europe.
fransje26
True, from experience, the E290 TD was mechanically solid. The electronics, less so unfortunately. Ours was plagued by intermittent errors and beeping, together with some parasitic battery drain we could not trace down despite our best efforts.
I didn't have the chance to own a W211, but from what I read and heard, it was indeed an improvement. Even in the looks department!
TimByte
Once you start swapping over-engineering for bean-counting, you don't just lose durability, you lose a whole loyal customer base
fransje26
Absolutely true.
formerly_proven
Yet W210, 211 etc. still sold millions of vehicles and are still on the road in numbers.
fransje26
The W210 did sell, but they did loose an unconditional taxi-driver base in the process. And a lot of loyal customers were truly unhappy with the downgrade and jumped ship.
insane_dreamer
I remember taxi drivers back then saying they would only buy MB because while they were more expensive, they lasted forever.
Arubis
You can still find these things running all over west Africa.
protimewaster
Those MB diesels made it to the States too, and they were equally well respected here in my experience. Although, there's long been a diesel aversion among some part of the population here, so it was maybe a narrower subset of the population familiar with the legend of the MB diesels.
I drove one for years, acquired when they were available as a quite cheap ~15 year old car. I've since switched to a Toyota and been quite happy with that. I don't know how long the current Toyotas will last, but the golden era Toyotas I think probably last about as well as the legendary MB diesels (with the bonus of not having to track down vacuum leaks).
_heimdall
No diesel engine is made well these days in my opinion, at least as far as passenger vehicles go.
Emissions systems on diesel engines have made the reliability pretty abysmal. That's not to say improving emissions isn't a good goal, but it was implemented terribly.
Between regulators over prescribing solutions and car companies finding the quickest and cheapest "fix" every step of the way, we ended with horribly complex motors that break down much earlier than before. It'd be interesting to see a comparison of total emissions when a 90s diesel is still on the road today compared to a newer diesel that is effectively junk in 10 years or a couple hundred thousand miles.
amluto
Given that one single old car without functioning emission controls will stink up an entire block far more than that entire block full of ordinary, modern traffic, I would expect that the (non-CO2) air pollution from an old diesel is far higher than that from building and operating new diesel vehicles.
formerly_proven
Even then, a EURO5 diesel still makes quite a stink. Of course, even an EU6+OPF gasoline car still puts out air akin to a dying dog's fart.
ICE vehicles just can't go away quickly enough (and we should aggressively get stinky vehicles like everything pre-EU5 and loud vehicles like motorcycles and scooters off the road first).
I'm not huge on regulation, but if anything MIV is underregulated. Even in the EU anything that was street-legal at some point in the past 70 years is grandfathered in, nevermind that illegal vehicle modifications - if caught - at most earn a slap on the wrist. That's enormously dumb and doesn't fly anywhere else.
_fat_santa
I remember one day I took my car to the mechanic and saw they were doing a head job on a Toyota Sienna (the minivan) that was used as a Taxi. Took a peek inside and realized the car had something like 450k miles.
Now a proud 4Runner owner, I see on forums all the time guys bragging about hitting 300k, 400k and as high as 600k in their 4Runners.
moltar
Same in Canada but in specially made taxi grade Crown Vics (85B)
Someone I knew had it and they drove it 24/7 in 3 shifts and it had over a million kilometers on it. Visually looked fine and ran fine.
morkalork
I remember someone from the prairies telling me that used Crown Vics were the ideal first car for teenagers and were highly sought after in the 90s/2000s.
TimByte
Nowadays it feels like the electronics or emissions gear will take the car down long before the engine wears out
SilverElfin
> Over the years, nearly everything on the vehicle has been replaced or repaired, and Campbell says the only original part is likely the body, and even that has had work done on it.
To me this makes it less interesting. I would be amazed if the original parts (outside of what gets replaced for maintenance) lasted that long. But it’s hard to judge how durable the car is when everything has been replaced
jillesvangurp
This kind of mileage is unusual with cars but it's pretty normal for semis. But even with those, engines get overhauled and there's lots of cumulative maintenance over the years. There are still trucks build in the sixties in service in some places.
With EVs, we might get some battery packs and drive trains actually lasting this long. Maybe not with nmc batteries. But some lfp batteries seem to have enough charge cycles on paper that they really could last that long. 5000 charge cycles at 300 miles per charge adds up to about 1.5M miles. Of course lots of other things might fail. But at least electrical motors are known to be pretty durable. That's not a common failure point on EVs as far as I know. But there's plenty of other stuff in EVs (electronics, cooling systems, suspension, etc.) that can break.
Of course, it will be a while before we'll see EVs that have driven that far as those type of batteries have only been on the market for a few years and even with 100K miles driven per year (which is a lot), it would take 12 years to get to 1.2M. This Toyota took quite a few decades to get there.
According to the article, this car actually wasn't particularly durable (the words 'rust buckets' were used). But if you just keep patching it up, of course it will run fine. And greasing up all the bits that would normally rust seems smart as well.
teiferer
> With EVs, we might get some battery packs and drive trains actually lasting this long.
I doubt it. The components in modern cars are not made to last as long. Neither is the software. Ever tried a 15 year old Iphone? A Tesla won't feel much different.
Everything is meant to be consumed nowadays, and eventually, sooner rather than later, replaced.
MBCook
There was recently an article about someone with a 3 year old Ford Mustang Mach E with 250k miles (400k KM).
https://www.thedrive.com/news/meet-the-man-with-the-250000-m...
Battery is still over 90%. And given that he’s having to do a full charge every day for the amount he drives, that’s pretty impressive. Still on the original brake pads too.
Sounds like all he’s really had to do is put on new tires a couple of times.
benjiro
And you get the luxury of paying 50% more, for that privilege (vs a ICE engine). I said it before, give me that BYD (reverse) hybrid engine, that does 1080km on a single tank.
Unfortunately, battery tech despite all the lab "super improvements" are not seeing any major gains in the field. And a lot of money has been going into that.
TimByte
I suspect in 30 years we'll be seeing million-mile EVs… but they'll probably be on their second or third infotainment system
SoftTalker
They still have control arms, ball joints, shocks, tie rods, bearings, and rubber and plastic seals and other bits that will wear out, dry out, or degrade. Not to mention a lot of electronics with limited-life components such as capacitors. The oldest modern EVs are just now getting to the age where those sorts of repairs will start to become necessary.
benjiro
One of the big questions is going to be, can you still find the battery packs 15 year, 20, 30 years later. The problem is that rebuilding battery packs is not a joke (and expensive). Assuming the same cells can be found / are not some crap 3th party manufactured in the future.
Lets also not forget that battery packs are full of electronics, BMS, and other items that may be less forgiving on a rebuild where batteries may be off in voltage or have a different charge cycle.
The future is going to be "interesting", especially for car collectors.
Getting a old antique car running is often not that hard (as long as it has not been standing where water can enter the engine. New hoses, oil changes, clean filters, and you can often get engines that have stood outside for 15, 20 years going again. Sure, its going to smoke, may need new piston rings, ... and Water being the prime killer.
But a battery pack in those conditions?
> 5000 charge cycles at 300 miles per charge adds up to about 1.5M miles.
Under ideal driving / charge situations...
* Hot areas like Spain. For instance, its know that batteries from EVs in hot area's tend to be much more degraded, then from cooler areas (make sense).
* Did they fast charge those batteries = your going to cycle down a LOT more. Remember, those 6000 cycle for stuff like LiPo batteries are based upon slow charging. General tip for people with solar: Overspec your battery sizes, your going to thank me.
* Did they always charge to 100%? What is the actual hidden reserve on a battery pack? Is it 5%, 10%?
* How many times did they drive below the 20% range.
There is a lot of elements that interact with your battery life. I mean, how many of use have thrown out perfectly good smartphone because the battery life became a disaster after only a few years. And the cost to replace the battery was not in proportion.
Recently people driving to holiday here in Europe had fun times... 15 a 25min wait times at charge stations, and when they hit 80% they got kicked off the fast chargers (because after 80% it becomes very slow to charge up those last 20%). Slow charging was not allowed. So people needed to stop around every 60 a 70% of their battery range on their holiday trip. Wait 15 a 25 min for a charger, then wait another 45 min for their charge. While the guy with his ICE engine, stops, tanks in 5 minutes, goes for another 50% more distance.
beala
Whether or not suitable battery replacements exist in 10 years is probably a function of demand. If there's a large demand for replacements, the market will provide. It's probably worth buying a popular model if you plan on keeping your EV for 20 years. For example, you should probably stay away from the Fisker Ocean [1], but I bet Tesla Model 3s will be well supported 20 years from now.
My metaquestion is: is it even rational to keep a car for 20 or 30 years? To me, the subject of the article seems penny wise but pound foolish. Certainly at some point since 1985, an upgrade would have been positive expected value for better safety, mileage, and comfort.
cogman10
I believe you are overthinking things. These aren't hard to overcome problems. Batteries are fundamentally very simple and they are designed to handle wide variations. Simple enough that there are already a bunch of shops that will rebuild and restore batteries using volt meters to yank (and sometimes replace) bad cells.
As for the factors affecting battery life, it's looking like age above everything else is the primary killer of batteries. Temp is a solved problem, all modern EVs have a cooling/heating system.
Cell phone batteries are also different from EV batteries. You won't find a cell phone with an LFP. that's because cell phones target energy density above all else.
As for travel charging, 15 to 25 waits are typical and charging past 80% is slow. A battery at 10% can accept 350kW of power. Batteries are 80% typically can't accept more than 80kW or less. The 80% to 100% time can take twice as long as the 0 to 80 time.
Waiting for a charger to be available is an infrastructure problem. I've had to wait on gas pumps to be available during busy times. Conversely, the most I've waited to charge has been 10 minutes (and I've traveled every thanksgiving for 7 years of EV ownership).
The 20 minute break is welcome after driving 2->3 hours.
cosmic_cheese
Battery degradation generally isn’t nearly as much of an issue with modern EVs. The active management systems they use are much more sophisticated and capable of keeping the battery in good condition than those of a smartphone. There are plenty of examples on the road with 200-300k miles still retaining 80-90% capacity.
Charging station wait times comes down to growing pains. Not enough stations combined with battery tech not yet having reached maturity. It’ll fix itself as more stations are installed and the technology continues to advance. The only bad thing to do would be to stop.
As far as antique cars go, I’m not too worried because both energy density in batteries and efficiency in motors has been increasing substantially over time. By the time these cars are old enough to be antiques, people will want to do full retrofits with modern batteries and motors anyway because what they came with will look primitive and clunky in comparison. The ceiling for potential on EV tech is much higher than it is for ICE based systems.
wcoenen
> Recently people driving to holiday here in Europe had fun times... 15 a 25min wait times at charge stations
My last two holidays in Europe I drove an EV about 1000 km to a holiday destination, and back again. So far I have never had to queue to charge.
I did notice that it is not unusual for a rest stop with only 2 to 4 fast chargers to be fully occupied. But if you use an app like ABRP to plan ahead, then it will tend to guide you to larger charging sites (e.g. 20 to 30 fast chargers of a few different brands). These charge planning apps also have live data about how many chargers are currently in use, so they will not send you to a fully occupied site if there are alternatives.
YMMV and the situation will change every year of course, as more EVs are added. Norway is the most advanced in Europe when it comes to car electrification, so if there are issues I guess they will show up over there first.
userbinator
1M km (Tm?) is less than 750k miles, for those more familiar with customary units.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irv_Gordon had a Volvo with over 3.25 million miles (5.2Tm), although it's also had 3 engine rebuilds.
mykowebhn
"Customary units"? I hate to break it to you, but most of the world uses the metric system.
And the conversion is actually fairly simple. 1M km is 600k miles, so you were in the ballpark.
kelnos
I hate you break it to you, but "customary units" is what they are called, regardless of the (lack of) prevalence of that custom.
burnt-resistor
Metrication will happen after Americans give up ICE vehicles like the Ford Expedition, ICE gestapo, ultraprocessed hamburgers, and climate change denial.
Metric is really far simpler, while Freedom Units are like going back to counting change in Roman-inspired £sd.
matt_s
I don't think anything with mechanical moving parts is going to last that long, with regular usage, and have original parts.
The fact that the owner can keep it going is a testament to the maintainability of combustion engines that don't have high tech computers in them.
Aurornis
> The fact that the owner can keep it going is a testament to the maintainability of combustion engines that don't have high tech computers in them.
New engines with modern ECUs are every bit as maintainable.
The ECU doesn’t make an engine less maintainable. Modern engines would have more moving pieces such as variable valve timing but otherwise they’re very similar in concept and maintenance.
matt_s
One part of maintainability is cost. And a simpler mechanical engine without proprietary ECUs is going to be cheaper to maintain, provided parts are available.
If someone encounters issues with an ECU and it needs replacement at $1k-2k they might just consider the costs and that being a down payment on a new vehicle vs. repairing. Labor costs more than parts for complicated electrical/computer/engine problems. Electrical issues in modern vehicles don't appear to be easy to troubleshoot, sometimes require proprietary tools. A simpler mechanical engine could be DIY repaired and running, check out the "low-buck garage" youtube channel and the $2 Jeep series as an example.
I'm not advocating something like going back to computer-less, inefficient, stinky, loud cars, just pointing out that when we add computers to things, it makes them less maintainable to the average person.
p1esk
I don't think anything with mechanical moving parts is going to last that long, with regular usage, and have original parts.
You should visit any third world country: plenty of old cars still running around.
jmb99
> I don't think anything with mechanical moving parts is going to last that long, with regular usage, and have original parts.
I know of at least two cars with 800k km with original engines. Both GM small blocks (Gen 2, multiport fuel injection so computer-controlled). Neither engine has been opened since they rolled off the floor in the 90s. They’re not particularly efficient (only about 270HP out of 5.7L) but if taken care of, they probably will go forever.
Definitely an exception, though. Very little else on those cars is still original. But it can be done.
TimByte
I get that, but I think the impressive part here isn't that the original parts are still there: it's that the car has been kept on the road for 40 years and 1.2M km through sheer persistence and maintenance
energy123
Legend says he even replaced the odometer
jama211
Tbf they said “nearly” everything. Probably it’s the same engine block, transmission housing, etc. And of course the shell, which is the most important. And I bet loads of interior too so where you sit feels very familiar.
diggan
> Probably it’s the same engine block, transmission housing, etc.
If someone says "the only original part is likely the body", then that makes it sound like they've replaced pretty much everything except the body itself, including everything about the engine and transmission.
mrtbld
The odometer most likely have not been replaced too
moffkalast
A literal ship of Theseus, arguably it's not even the same car.
sonorous_sub
No man ever slides behind the wheel of the same Tercel twice.
null
danans
> No man ever slides behind the wheel of the same Tercel twice.
Pantercel Rhei
jose_mr
But when exactly did it stop being the same car?
diggan
When you changed the VIN :)
hdgvhicv
And what if you took the other parts and built a separate car from them?
bot403
Fun fact, on average most (not all though) of the cells in your body are brand new after 7 years. When do you stop being you and take a new name?
jama211
It hasn’t, the law decided a car is it’s shell and that’s it.
moffkalast
An easy way to say would be when it's still 50% original, but I think an interesting way to look at it is that it becomes a whole new thing after every major change.
First it's his new car, then it becomes his new car with new tires, and then his car with new windshield wipers, and finally his old car with all new parts and some old ones. None of them are the same car.
I think in cases where it' a major rebuild, like turning a WW2 Minesweeper first into a ferry, and finally into Cousteau's research ship Calypso this outlook is more obvious. Are these ships all the same despite getting almost a full refit at each stage? I would say none of them are the same ship, but completely separate "things" with some old and some new parts.
HKH2
Not literal.
burnt-resistor
It's all about getting creative with junk yards and third-party NLA substitute part sellers.
nabla9
Before reading the article I was certain that it's either: A Toyota, or Mercedes-Benz from 1970-80s.
nickd2001
A friend bought a 14-yr-old one of these for little at an auction in 1999. As someone who knew little about cars, her logic was, it "looked OK' and had had one owner, and crucially, the radio was tuned to a NPR classical music station and therefore anyone who listened to that would have treated their car responsibly. ;) Suffice to say, this was an excellent purchase, reliable and inexpensive to run, in fact in order to find out whether some maintenance was due or not she managed to track down the previous owner who turned out to be a middle-aged woman who was just as responsible as my friend imagined. ;)
unclenoriega
This reminds me of going hill hopping as a kid with my radio tuned to the local NPR classical music station. Once when I went a little airborne, my engine shutoff upon landing. (It restarted OK though.)
whartung
I have been "a little airborne" in a Toyota Tercel, we and the vehicle survived OK. I dragged one of those over large chunks of the Nevada desert. FWD FTW. I sometimes shiver looking back at the places we took that thing.
We didn't have an NPR Classical Music station to listen to, however.
I will note in the future, however, when selling my car, to tune it to NPR.
franze
> Over the years, nearly everything on the vehicle has been replaced or repaired, and Campbell says the only original part is likely the body, and even that has had work done on it.
aka
This is my grandfather’s axe. My father replaced the handle. I replaced the head.
jasoncartwright
In the UK we call this Trigger's Broom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56yN2zHtofM
HPsquared
Maybe the axe exists as the interface point between the pieces. And the history logbook.
amelius
Ship of Theseus
bombela
1.2mega-kilo-meter? 1.2 million kilo-meter?
What about the proper unit: 1.2Gm (1.2 giga-meter).
jelder
I grew up in a Tercel family, and we too had a “parts car” in the back yard. Reliable, safe, repairable car the likes of which simply don’t exist anymore.
1970-01-01
These old economy boxes were designed to be as simple as possible. We simply don't have anything like it today. While the durability of year 2000+ vehicles has very consistently improved, their repairability is trending exactly opposite. A "lifetime" part failure can be 5x the time and effort to remove and replace compared to the pre-2000 models.
cpursley
Title could just be "Toyota has more than 1.2 km on it", as we already all know it would be a Toyota.
volkadav
tbh I was guessing Volvo 240-series. I suspect cockroaches will be driving those battleships around after the bomb/climate collapse/asteroid/big crunch.
anonu
My dad had the station wagon for a while (in a Middle Eastern country). He would regularly get little notes asking if it was for sale.
cpursley
Didn't those things have all sorts of electrical gremlins?
mitkebes
There's a Tesla that has driven about 2 million Km (1.2 million miles) as of last year.
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-s-1-2-million-miles-10...
caminanteblanco
Wow, with 13 motor replacements, that's got to be $80,000-110,000 in replacement costs just for that part.
bluGill
new cars would be far more than that for people who only buy new. Even if you bought 3 year old cars and replaced them in year 10 you are getting that costs.
i buy used cars because while I can fix things it time I don't have. I'm looking at a transmisson rebuild - it would take me 6 months to do myself. Or I can buy a newer car that works and get around now.
mrweasel
There are some calculations that makes replacing a old gas or diesel powered car more environmentally friendly, as compered to buying a new electric car. I do wonder where the tipping point is though, and if there isn't an environmental argument to be made that not only should government bad the sale of new internal combustion engine cars, but they should also ban cars with an expected lifespan shorter than e.g. 15 - 20 years.
hdgvhicv
If externalities were correctly priced in to fuel, rare earths, rubber, road wear etc then it would be easy to see, the cheaper the better.
But they aren’t, not even close. Oil is massively subisidised by the military before the environmental costs. Brake particulates and tyres don’t cover the cost of microplastics and lung damage, heavy cars don’t pay anywhere near the damage they cause to the roads and bridges etc.
Due to this you can argue pretty much whatever you want by ignoring certain costs depending what you want to come out with.
My petrol car is 20 years old, it’s done 70,000 miles, it weighs about 1,000kg and burns through 300 litres of unleaded each year to do the 3,000 miles I do in it.
I suspect scrapping and replacing this with even a small electric car would not be globally environmentally worthwhile. There may be improvements to local air quality assuming regenerative breaking etc, that may be offset by increased tyre and road wear though, even ignoring the impact of the co2 to generate the 80kWh a year it would require.
while_true_
20 year old cars tend to be heavy polluters because they don't meet the latest emissions standards. Here in California the state will buy old cars and scrap them to get dirty emitters out of service. Also, nearly every day electrical generation is over 50% using solar, wind or hydro so EVs are cleaner here than any ICE vehicle by far.
UncleOxidant
I'm pretty sure that holding onto my '98 Civic is more environmentally friendly than buying a new EV - especially since I only drive ~3000 miles/year (If I drove 10K+ miles/year then the calculation would likely skew towards an EV). The Civic still runs great and it's easy to repair when something does go wrong. And the mileage is quite good - ~30MPG combined (easily get 37MPG on the freeway).
while_true_
That 1985 Toyota emits more GHG and NOx per mile than a new vehicle because it wasn't built to meet the latest US or Canadian emissions standards. Older vehicles emit more pollutants so in some US states the government will buy the car to have it scrapped, thus improving the overall fleet emissions statewide. In California there are owners who keep and maintain pre-1975 vehicles because they have little or no smog control systems, are easy to work on, and they are exempt from mandatory bi-annual smog testing.
realusername
The calculation I've seen put it around 50k km, depends of how good the local grid is of course.
> Over the years, nearly everything on the vehicle has been replaced or repaired, and Campbell says the only original part is likely the body, and even that has had work done on it.
It’s the Tercel of Theseus: if every part has been replaced, is it still the same car?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus