Going into the California desert, you can find a huge area of automobile junkyard. However, it will not be remarkable at all for this, but for the fact that it is mainly composed of cars that are in good, and sometimes even excellent condition. How did it happen that all these cars are unnecessary for anyone under the scorching sun that destroys the paint and bodywork? The answer to this question is quite simple and sad.
Dieselgate
In this case, we are talking specifically about the Volkswagen car dump, which was at the center of a scandal back in 2015. After testing new series cars, it turned out that their diesel engines do not comply with the environmental regulations of Western countries. The cars actually emitted an order of magnitude more exhaust gases than the figures given in the technical documentation. As a result, the supervisory authorities made the only conclusion: Volkswagen deliberately indicated incorrect data in order to save on environmental requirements.
An interesting fact: during the trial over Volkswagen, which was named Dieselgate, it was found that more than 11 million vehicles of the enterprise did not meet environmental standards.
In order to fix the situation somehow (and of course to save its reputation), the German company Volkswagen had to take all the cars from the owners and return the money to them. In total, more than 350 thousand cars went to the landfill sites. One of these dumps is just in the desert in California. However, she is far from the only one. Volkswagen alone has at least 34 junkyards with new cars.
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Outrageous capitalism
If everything is more or less clear with Volkswagen - the guys wanted to save money and played dishonestly for which they paid, then with other companies everything is much more complicated and sad. The fact is that such dumps of new cars are actually not an exception, but a practice. Moreover, they appear not only because of any scandals.
For example, Citroen and Nissan also have similar landfills. And all because producers are faced with overproduction. New models appear so quickly and in such numbers that enterprises do not have time to sell the previous ones. As a result, absolutely new and good cars rot out in the open and are not needed by anyone.
General Motors is particularly cynical about this. Landfills are purchased in advance. So, it is often easier to throw away excess cars than to dispose of them or try to sell them. There is a crisis of overproduction due to unjustifiably high prices, a fall in the purchasing power of the population, as well as the too rapid emergence of new product models. A wonderful example of how the capitalist system wastes natural and human resources in order to create unnecessary (or inaccessible) benefits of civilization.
Note: of course, manufacturing companies most often make such landfills secret, but nowadays it becomes quite difficult to hide from Google Maps.
The saddest thing is that a significant part of the cars standing in such landfills does not expect anything. In the best case, they will be disposed of by going under pressure. However, utilization in a capitalist economy is not always a profitable business. This means that most of the good-quality machines will remain at the mercy of Mother Nature.
