Amortization

There were lively discussions about the car's depreciation. Previously, in order to discourage the purchase of new cars, a non-linear depreciation system had been devised, decreasing sharply over time, over 10 years. This non-linear depreciation had the merit of discouraging new purchases, and of making it clear to the user that a large part of the vehicle's footprint is linked to its production, and therefore to the purchase of a new car.

But this non-linear depreciation was not easy for users to understand, and failed to achieve its educational objective. In addition, it created a double discourse in Nos Gestes Climat, because in the actions proposed to car owners, we propose the purchase of an electric vehicle, which is heavily penalised if it is bought new in the individual carbon footprint.

Lastly, there was one exception in the Nos Gestes Climat simulator: all other assets are depreciated on a straight-line basis (the construction footprint is divided by the lifespan of the asset).

We therefore decided to go back to straight-line depreciation over the life of the car, which is measured in years.

But we still didn't like the way this worked: it penalised short-distance drivers a lot, and didn't seem very fair in relation to the reality of a vehicle, whose lifespan is expressed more in km.

So, in the end, we opted for this system: the vehicle's depreciation is based on the number of km driven, in relation to the maximum number of km corresponding to the vehicle's size.