You know that new car smell that many of the wealthy love so much? The smell that has even led to the scent being sold in a spray bottle? That smell may be dangerous to your health.
Little study has been done on the health effects of off gassing of plastics and glues, etc. that produce the new car smell. An attempt has been made to rank cars by off gassing, but since they use different materials, this may be an almost futile attempt.
The fact an attempt has been made to rank off gassing tells me there is very likely a problem here. Oh and don’t tell me there is no way to tell. Long term studies should be relatively easy to do because there is a whole class of wealthy drivers who drive only new and recently new cars. There is also a class of drivers that has never owned a new car in their lives.
This is a problem the car companies don’t want you to know about because it could upset the whole apple cart. What if the brand new car were considered to be the worst incarnation (couldn’t resist the choice of words) of a vehicle?
I for one don’t know how warranties would work if the brand new car is considered the worst. But there are a couple of approaches that might work in the off-gassing-is-unhealthy world.
Quite simply the rich might get the poor to drive their new cars for a good 6 months and maybe as long as a year. You know, until the unhealthy off gases are gone. This could have problems. If there were a clash between the rich classes and the poor, the poorer drivers might take it out on the rich owners’ cars. “Whoops, did I sides wipe a guard rail with a car of the 1 percent?”
More likely I expect to see aged and extra aged cars hit the market. They would be more expensive because the car companies would have to store the vehicles while they were busy off gassing.
Don’t forget buses also have the off gassing problems, too. I expect new plastics and glues would be tested on this transportation system of the poor and the smug. Some people are almost exclusively public transit riders. They would be easy to find and test, too.
Expect the name “Oldsmobile” to be worth something again. With that name, I wouldn’t be surprised to see an aged six months incarnation, even an aged 1 year model, and finally an aged 2 years model. Life will go on after the apple cart has been upset.
