- Henry Ford famously quipped,
You can have a Model T in any color you want,
as long as it's black.
And something as simple as car paint
became the first step backwards in automotive progress.
An entire industry designed around engineering innovation
began to slow down and take some of the best it had to offer
off the table.
How did car paint make the market worse for the customer?
Well it all comes down to a little concept
of planned obsolescence.
Shout out Gojira.
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(bell chimes)
- Planned obsolescence is the practice
in which a product is designed to one day be replaced.
It happens in almost every industry,
consumers don't just buy a product once,
but again and again and again, as needed.
In the automotive industry, this concept takes many forms.
Some are more obvious than others,
but let's start with the most basic examples.
A car is a complex machine
and eventually parts are just gonna break.
That's nothing new.
We have a whole industry centered around automotive repair.
But faulty parts become a problem
when replacement parts are not available.
In the U.S. there is technically no law
that requires a manufacturer to continue making parts
for any model of car.
Now, most manufacturers see the benefits
in supporting older models.
It's great for their brand image
and it's an added revenue stream.
Replacing parts is the kind of planned obsolescence
most people think of.
I wanna fix a thing, but I can't fix a thing,
so I have to buy a new thing.
But planned obsolescence in the automotive industry
is a little sneakier than that.
And just to be clear, I'm not talking about things
that end up breaking after awhile.
I'm talking about things that would work totally fine
if the world hadn't moved on.
For example, in 1990 Mazda was the first to introduce
a built-in GPS unit.
From there, the built-in GPS showed up
in just about every other car.
But the issue with most GPS systems
was that only the actual location data
was being transmitted back and forth.
For the map data you needed to load a CD or USB device
to update for newer maps.
The tech in your car, literally, went out of date.
Updating was a pain.
Sure, you could argue it was a limitation
of the technology at the time.
What was a limitation though,
was the eventual loss of support.
Oh, sorry, we can't give you a new map for your seven series
'cause we thought you would have bought a new seven series
10 years ago.
Then there's tech like OnStar,
GM's hands-free calling system from 2002,
which is being turned off in 2022.
Even though the functionality has been replaced
with a common cell phone,
the system was also designed to call 911 automatically
in the event of a collision.
And that safety feature is a big part of buyers
getting OnStar equipped in their cars.
And that's still something a cell phone can't do today.
But GM's proprietary system lived and died on their terms,
and there's no way to continue using the life saving product
you paid for.
Even radios are a form of planned obsolescence.
I know technology moves pretty fast
and there's no way car makers in the '80s
could have predicted CDs or MP3s or satellite radio
or Apple CarPlay.
But at the time they had a system that could,
the DIN system.
In 1984, the German national organization
for standardization came up with the DIN 75490
as the standard international size
for any car mount head units.
Eventually every car had a single DIN
or double DIN head unit.
And as the technology progressed,
you could upgrade your stereo
and keep jamming out to whatever was popular that decade.
But today the DIN standard is being replaced
in more and more cars
with large touchscreen center consoles.
This started with Tesla's iPad-dwarfing center console,
in the Model S and became a trend
in many other modern cars.
Sure, these touchscreens are cool now,
but the upgradability is no longer there.
Not only are these consoles heavily integrated into the car,
but the standard sizing is gone.
Hey, if you're liking this video so far,
please go ahead and hit that Like button.
Now, before we get too much further,
I wanna say that none of these things
are things that are gonna stop you
from driving an older car.
If you're a car enthusiast with even a little bit of skill
or determination, you can get around
most of these headaches.
But the point is, is that they're all little hang-ups,
ways for manufacturers to nudge the common folk
away from an older car and into a new car dealership.
But it's not always the small nudges
from one company's marketing team or another.
Sometimes the industry plays the long game.
Many people believe that the best time to sell a car
is before 100,000 miles.
Like it's some magic number that triggers the failure
of everything in your car.
And while it's true that 60 to 100,000 miles
is usually the end of a manufacturer's drivetrain warranty,
there are plenty of cars on the road with more miles.
But here's the thing,
the actual people making the car, the OEMs,
are only guaranteed to make money off the car once,
when the first buyer buys it.
And once that buyer has driven off the lot,
the OEMs want to sell that buyer,
a new car as soon as possible.
And if that buyer's conditioned to believe
that 100,000 miles is all a car is good for,
they'll be back in the showroom sooner,
100,000 miles was the life expectancy of cars
as early as the 1950s.
My car, the Mustang, has 160,000 miles now
and it's still running strong.
Nowadays cars can last much longer,
but the 100,000 mile mark
still continues to have a big effect on the market.
A lot of used car lots, won't sell cars over 100,000 miles.
Most banks won't give you a loan
for a car over 100,000 miles.
And the stigma is perpetuated
partly so you'll go into a dealership and buy a new car.
As a result, the average new car buyer
only keeps a car for about six years.
That's pretty wild.
Sure, just about anything can be repaired these days,
but for some, dumping money into their old car
isn't worth it.
It's served them well,
and now it's time for something new.
For manufacturers this is a delicate balance.
They need to avoid over-engineering a car,
spending money on reliability
that their customer will never need,
but they also can't make a car too frail.
This is the kind of thing that caught out VW in 2016.
Their 1.8T engine was having timing belt tensioner issues
as early as 50,000 miles
and they had to pay out up to $2,500 bucks per car
in a class action lawsuit.
Take a hurt.
One of the places we've seen planned obsolescence go too far
is in the world of consumer electronics.
I'm talking about non-swappable batteries in cell phones.
Over time batteries lose their ability to retain charge
and become less effective.
If you can't swap the battery, you're essentially forced
into buying a new phone.
Now that battery technology is becoming a big part
of the automotive world, could we see the same thing happen?
Maybe, a battery swap on an older hybrid
is cost prohibitive, but it's not impossible.
Chris Fix has a great video on how to do it
and that's just with common hand tools.
But earlier this year,
Tesla gave details about their new Model Y
and it's structural battery pack.
Basically, we could be seeing a battery
that can't be swapped
because it's part of the chassis
and I don't think that's right.
Planned obsolescence is the manufacturer's way
of making sure that they have repeat customers.
But if you remember the beginning of this video,
you might be wondering, Nolan, how the heck
does paint fit into all this?
(upbeat music)
Back in the early '20s, the American auto industry
had a small problem.
Manufacturers had made their cars so good
and so reliable that almost anyone
who was planning on buying a car already owned one.
At the time paint manufacturer, DuPont,
owned the controlling share of General Motors.
Do you see where I'm going with this?
What could a company that made paint
do to get people to buy more cars?
Well, General Motors started releasing limited edition runs
of cars in unique paint schemes.
Before this, your paint really wasn't a selling point.
Most people just wanted a utilitarian piece of machinery
to move around.
Now that all of a sudden new paint schemes
were being offered, the older cars of Ford
and even GM's own models looked outdated by comparison.
Since then car paint has been changing in style
and availability in an effort to entice people
into the showrooms.
For a more recent example, take a look at the Scion TC.
Over the single decade it was produced
they had two generations with only one upgrade
in performance and overall design.
But in that same time, it had 11 Special Edition colors
that are available for one model year each.
True planned obsolescence is when something absolutely
stops working and it can not be repaired.
Luckily, there are moves being made
to combat planned obsolescence right now.
Right to Repair laws are being introduced here in California
as a way to keep tech companies
supporting older phones and computers.
But there's another kind that can't be legislated,
it's how a simple paint color can affect a whole market.
It's called perceived obsolescence.
Perceived obsolescence is a crucial lifeline
of the automotive industry.
It's the idea that even though your car isn't inoperable,
you still need a new one.
Otherwise, how will people know how well you're doing?
How will you look in the parking lot?
How will you be able to look the valet in the eyes
without a new car?
I know this kinda sounds like
the ultimate first world problem
and I agree, I've never bought a new car in my life.
Although, hopefully, that changes when the Z comes out
and it's affordable.
But you can't deny that the first buyer's opinion
has an affect on the manufacturer
and therefore an affect on the market.
Something that is added to a car to make it trendy
will also one day make it dated.
Headlights and taillights, for example, change constantly.
Not just because they get better necessarily,
but because they look newer than what came before them.
Sequential turn signals look futuristic and fancy now,
but we used to have them
in all kinds of cars in the '60s.
Headlights and DRLs started pushing towards
wider cooler LEDs
and now some cars have these orangy yellow DRLs
and they all of a sudden looked cool again.
They didn't get better necessarily, but they look sick.
On the one hand, it's part of the ever-changing
ebb and flow of style, but on the other,
it's all designed to make you want the new car
that you might not actually need.
But this is the beauty of being part of the car community,
these mind games employed to sell more cars,
don't have any effect on you or me.
Okay maybe a little, that K5 does look pretty sick.
But if you want a Special Edition color,
you can get your car painted or wrapped or do it yourself.
Want to update your infotainment?
You can do that thanks to the aftermarket
and awesome videos like ours,
or any other number of YouTubers.
And if you're looking to update your car's look,
no matter what the new trend is, there's a good chance
that the car enthusiast community can provide.
And if you're like me, and your car is more than just a box
that you commute to work in,
it's something that you love
and it's part of who you are,
something that stresses you out.
If there's a Right to Repair bill in your area
or something similar, support it.
Planned obsolescence isn't it as big
in the automotive industry as it's become the tech world.
And thanks to the awareness being raised there,
it looks like we'll be safe to enjoy older cars
as long as we can.
Thank you very much for watching Wheelhouse this week.
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check out the Donut Underground,
you get access to behind the scenes videos,
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Hit that Join button down below,
if it sounds like something you'd be interested in.
Planned obsolescence worked on me,
I got a purple phone 'cause it came in purple.
I did have a very old phone,
so I don't feel that ripped off, but it worked.
Follow Donut on all social media @donutmedia.
Follow me @nolanjsykes.
Be kind, I'll see you next time.