Where Unwanted Cars Go To Die
When it comes to declining sales and a stagnant demand in the automotive industry, where do the unwanted cars go to die? In Sheerness, United Kingdom, tens of thousands of vehicles sit parked because no one wanted to buy them. In the world today, there are hundreds of locations like this, and the vehicles continue to pile up, deteriorating due to a lack of maintenance.
Car manufacturers have to purchase more land to park their unsold cars as newer vehicles roll off the production line, and the accumulation of unsold cars climbs steadily each day. The Port of Baltimore, Maryland, United States, has more than 57,000 parked cars, and that number climbs higher every day. Despite the waste in materials, the automotive industry will never sell these cars at massive price reductions. If they priced these cars for sale at a few thousand dollars, they would sell them, but then no one would purchase the higher-priced vehicles.
The numbers continue to reach epic proportions because there has been a decline in the demand for newer vehicles. People are no longer buying a new car each year. Despite this, the car industry cannot close their factories because tens of thousands would be without jobs, and it would exasperate the recession. Additionally, the loss of the automotive industry would create a domino effect because steel sales would take a nosedive, and car component companies would sell less than before.
Big car manufacturers have run out of space to park these new and unsold vehicles, so they are purchasing more acres of land to store them.
Almost everyone in the developed world owns a vehicle or two. You can use Google Maps to see these unsold cars. Currently, there are more cars than people in the world, with an estimated 10 billion vehicles worthy of the road. Many of the unwanted vehicles have sat on a lot for more than 12 months without being used, which is detrimental to the operation of the car.
When cars sit idle, the oil sinks to the bottom and corrosion sets in to the engine components, causing faster decay. Cold corrosion occurs when condensation builds in the cylinders and causes rust. The longer a vehicle stays inactive, the further the decline of its condition. Unsold cars two years and older will have no choice but to be crushed and their parts recycled. There is little chance that big car brands will sell these unwanted vehicles at a fraction of the cost.
