This from the WSJ, via the carconnection.com site:
Car accidents are becoming more costly and as a result, The Wall Street Journal reports, more vehicles are being scrapped instead of repaired. The paper says this year thus far, 16 percent of vehicles involved in collisions are being scrapped, up from just 7 percent in 1995. Part of the problem is the increasing technology baked into vehicles like Jaguar's X and Audi's A8 aluminum-bodied cars with expensive and specialized repair needs. Airbags, too, are causing more catastrophic damage to the interiors of cars, resulting in high repair bills. Even headlamps - multiple beam xenon lamps in particular - are far more expensive to repair than plain old halogens.