Your wording makes it a bit unclear, just for clarity: this means that GP is wrong, it's definitely better for the climate to have your old car crushed and buy a new car. The amount of CO2 expended during manufacturing of your car is not significant on the lifetime of the car.

If it's really just 20,000 miles then frankly it might even be one of the most effective ways to turn your dollars into reduced CO2 expenditure.

This is where a hyper focus on solely CO2 emissions is likely harmful. One also needs to consider the environmental impacts of mining for all the raw materials, for example, for that new car.

And the cost of new cars these days with the inflation over the past 1.5 years

> Your wording makes it a bit unclear, just for clarity: this means that GP is wrong, it's definitely better for the climate to have your old car crushed and buy a new car. The amount of CO2 expended during manufacturing of your car is not significant on the lifetime of the car.

I did not claim climate-friendliness, but environmental friendliness though.

Well if you want to be good for the environment you also have to consider nitrate emissions and fine particles.

Also, it was my understanding that most of a (ICE) car can be melted and reused, so maybe the mining impact is lower but I don't know what the real world consequences are.

That still would ignore major sources of pollutants, such as tires (that get distributed into the air and on the road while driving). Electric cars do not improve that at all. If we just focus on emissions from the motors, why can't we just replace the motors instead of producing new seats, steering wheels and doors, while attaching a bunch of computers to it that also undermine the driver's privacy, and selling the package for double the price?

A yeah 100%. You couldn't replace an ICE with an electric motor, at least not with current technology, but you could definitely replace it with a more efficient one. Maybe even with a hybrid if you're willing to give up some room.