Toyota to remanufacture cars up to three times in UK
This is clearly about BEVs, they are much harder for a local mechanic to “overhaul” when the key component, the battery, reaches the end of its life.I think its great that they are thinking ahead like this, it’s also good for the communities where Toyota have factories in the UK. There has been so much talk about how the lifetime of a BEV is much longer than a ICE, bringing them back to the factories for “re-manufacturing” helps to ensure jobs in communities that have been badly hurt by the automotive industry before.I suspect this is where the whole industry is going to go, the smaller local mechanics are sadly going to disappear but if we see the remanufacturing happening in the countries of use that’s at least a plus.The other thing this does though is further entrench the manufactures in the second hand market and tie yet more customers to their financing plans.EDIT:Wanted to add, that this also helps the manufacture keep control of the value in the battery’s which is probably the largest single const in a BEV. Remanufacturing the battery’s themselves will be massively important.It will be interesting to see how this effects British Car Auctions (the company) who have a near monopoly on the second hand market.