Average age of US cars, trucks hits new record amid high prices for new vehicles
FOX Business' Jeff Flock reports on the 33% rise in auto repair costs across the past four years.
The average age of cars and light trucks on the road today in the United States has hit a new record of 12.6 years in 2024 as new vehicle prices remain high, according to vehicle registration data tracked by S&P Global Mobility.
The company says that’s an increase of two months since the end of 2023. The average selling price of a new vehicle in the U.S. last month was around $45,000, The Associated Press is reporting, citing data from J.D. Power.
«It’s prohibitively high for a lot of households now,» Todd Campau, aftermarket practice lead at S&P Global Mobility, told the AP. «So I think consumers are being painted into the corner of having to keep the vehicle on the road longer.»
S&P Global says the size of the U.S. vehicle fleet «surged to 286 million vehicles in operation (VIO) in January, up 2 million over 2023, but the distribution of vehicles by age is changing.
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The average age of cars and light trucks on the road in the U.S. has increased to 12.6 years, S&P Global Mobility says. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images / Getty Images)
»Vehicles under the age of six accounted for 98M vehicles in 2019, or about 35 percent of VIO. Today they represent less than 90M vehicles and are not expected to reach that threshold again until 2028 when they will represent about 30% of VIO, according to S&P Global Mobility estimates," it said.
«This is driven by the impact of COVID and subsequent supply chain shortages that disrupted vehicle supply and registrations — and following historically high volumes in
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