Toronto, Ontario — According to a recent S&P Global Mobility report, vehicles on the road are continuing to get even older with the average age of cars and light trucks in the United States now reaching 12.6 years in 2024.
This age represents a two month age increase from 2023, however, S&P Global Mobility noted that “increase in average age is showing signs of slowing as new registrations normalize.”
“With average age growth, more vehicles are entering the prime range for aftermarket service, typically six to 14 years of age,” said Todd Campau, aftermarket practice lead at S&P Global Mobility. “With more than 110 million vehicles in that sweet spot—reflecting nearly 38 percent of the fleet on the road—we expect continued growth in the volume of vehicles in that age range to rise to an estimated 40 percent through 2028.”
Moreover, the report further noted that vehicle scrappage rates, or “the measure of vehicles exiting the active population,” continued to hold steady at 4.6 percent, and this number remained largely unchanged from the recorded 4.5 percent in January, 2023.
Specifically, since 2020, “more than 27 million passenger cars exited the U.S. vehicle population, while just over 13 million new passenger cars were registered. At the same time, over 26 million light trucks, including utilities, were scrapped and nearly 45 million were registered,” said the report.
Electric vehicles (EVs) on the road also continued to increase, with “3.2 million EVs in operation in January. 2023 EV registrations surpassed one million units for the first time and increased about 52 percent compared with 2022.”
The report also outlined that “the rate of EV growth was slower than some automakers had anticipated, and there is potential for the average age of EVs to rise in the short term as consumer adoption slows. The average age of EVs in the U.S. is 3.5 years and has been holding steady since 2019, with new registrations representing a large share of overall EV VIO.”
To see S&P Global Mobility’s full report, click here.
