Keep your cars for longer, says BMW’s sustainability manager

It would seem that the automaker will want to sell more and more new cars, and the statements of the management will correspond to this. Monika Dernaiová, Head of Sustainability at the German car manufacturer BMW, says otherwise: In her opinion, buying new cars is not desirable.

“We have to think about extending the life of cars; not having a second-hand market where you resell cars, but perhaps rather take a car and extend its life. Perhaps you could restore the interior,” quotes the British website AutoExpress.

“We need new skills in used cars and we also need to build cars so that the seat can be replaced with a new one, so it’s an older car that looks new. It may still have the same owner who does not buy a new car, we as BMW still have a business model and the company benefits from that,” continues the manager.

Dernai spoke to the audience in a panel discussion on the circular economy. This term encompasses the idea that society should reuse and recycle as much as possible and produce as little waste as possible.

BMW isn’t the first automaker to come up with such ideas. For instance. Toyota’s British division came up with the idea of ​​refurbishing entire cars to be as close to new-car condition as possible for other customers. Changing the seat was most likely just one example, but to get the feel of a new car, a lot more work needs to be done on an old car than just changing one component in the cabin.

While the title of “sustainability manager” may sound a little scary to some, Monika Dernaiová isn’t working to dismantle the automaker from within. Or at least it doesn’t seem so from her statements. According to her, there will always be a need for individual car transport, and in a previous interview she expressed her disapproval of driving bans in inner cities, among other things.