Car Longevity Still Rising
Jan 14 2010, 15:13 EST [updated Jan 14 2010, 15:15 EST]
I saw this article on car makers in trouble which states that the worldwide production capacity of automobiles is 94 million cars & trucks a year. Back-of-the-envelope math says that is 1 car for every family of four on the planet every ten years. That's a lot of cars.
That's a pretty remarkable increase in just a couple decades. Cars may not be getting much cheaper but they are getting more durable. If you assume 12,000 miles per year the average car now has over 110,000 miles on it!
The real story is increasing car longevity. Even in the US with it's relatively high incomes and lower car prices the average car is now 9.4+ years old. The nice folks at the Bureau of Transportation Statistics have a table of historical data, excerpted here:
| Year | Average car age (years) |
| 1990 | 6.5 |
| 1995 | 7.7 |
| 2000 | 8.3 |
| 2005 | 9.0 |
| 2008 | 9.4 |