Yeah, I live in the Northeast US and, with one exception, rust has been the proximate cause of retiring every vehicle I've ever owned (as well as a few expensive near end-of-life repairs I shouldn't have had done).

The situation is much better than it was 40 years or so again but, if you drive a vehicle in the winter around here, you're still looking at a realistic maximum life of 10 to 15 years before everything just starts falling apart.

I have a 20 year old Honda Del Sol I've garaged in the winter for about the last 10 years. Whenever I take it into the Honda dealer there are always mechanics that want to ooh and ahh over it because they said you basically don't see them around New England any longer.

Car's don't rust like they used to! One of my favorite childhood memories was seeing from my dad getting so mad at his '78 Toyota Celica (we called it the Rustola) that he kicked a hole in the door and got his foot stuck inside.

It's phenomenal how much improvement there was in rustproofing between even '70 and '90. If a '90-'00 car hasn't been crashed and not driven in very salty conditions, you can find them with essentially no rust even now.

Well, and in a few Chrystlers and a Ford I've been familiar with, the trannie. Kind of a race between the two factors.

Right now, I have an older Subaru that would be good for at least a few more years, except the rust has compromised the gas tank. And dropping that means dropping the drive train. And you can get it back together -- but how many parts do you end up having to replace, because the rust has gotten to them too badly. And then you're closing in on the value of the car.

If/when we switch to composites (and/or aluminum), with an electric drive train maybe localized at the four wheels, or at least "compartmentalized" and swap-able (1), then maybe the rust factor and overall longevity will improve. Maybe... I'm waiting to see what creative means corrosion demonstrates to further its entropy under this scenario.

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1. And for the record, I'd still prefer a "hybrid" design with backup on-board generation from some type of chemical fuel, at least until electric penetration is thorough and cold-weather capacity is secured.

[1] https://www.engineering.com/AdvancedManufacturing/ArticleID/...

We're short-sighted to require cars to show MPG before purchase. They should all require a spreadsheet showing Total Cost of Ownership dependent on expected annual highway/city mileage as input.

What's gas cost? How much extra is the hybrid? What's the scrap value?

Though I guess you can lookup insurance rates to figure out the scrap value (some cars are worth more parted-out than running).

Without UV constantly hitting your tires and interior, they last longer. Your electric water pump runs less/lasts longer. But that's all I can think of, but it's harder to measure the general impacts of ambient being, on average, 20C less.

I think we should just send every car from the NE down South once it's 6-8 years old to balance the wear. The rust process will largely stop.

That said, none of my ~25yo vehicles are failing inspection for structural rust, they're all failing because the fenders rust out where the wheel sprays everything.

All aluminum construction would mitigate a lot of that. When aluminum oxidizes, it tends to form something hard, as opposed to flaky rust. Electric vehicles could be optimized for delivery fleet use with a highly modular construction and a smooth underbody. The modules could be removed for repair while a spare one is swapped in. (This is currently done with M1 Abrams tanks.) Electric drive-trains also require less maintenance, and the open cargo space of a delivery van can facilitate easy access to mechanicals even though the underbody has no openings.

PS: Ford is moving the F150 to aluminum adding ~500$ per vehicle but also saving weight. Which should net to zero via added fuel economy.