The average car on American roads is now 12.8 years old

The average light vehicle in the United States is 12.8 years old, according to S&P Global Mobility’s 2025 report on the nation’s roughly 289 million cars, SUVs, pickups and vans in operation. The figure is a fleet average, so it blends a 14.5-year average for passenger cars with an 11.9-year average for light trucks. It has climbed for years because the cars leaving the road each year are, on balance, being replaced more slowly than they age.

Mechanically, the number is simple. It is an average across every light vehicle registered and still in use.

Scrappage, registrations and the arithmetic of an ageing fleet

S&P Global Mobility’s own analysis of average vehicle age points to two inputs. The first is the scrappage rate, the share of the fleet retired in a year, which held steady at 4.5 percent. The second is new registrations, which topped 16 million in 2024 for the first time since 2019. As a rough illustration, 4.5 percent of 289 million is about 13 million scrapped vehicles, which leaves a gap of around 3 million that matches the stated rise in the fleet from the year before. New sales only pull the average down when they outrun retirements by enough to add many young vehicles to the fleet, and a 16 million sales year added a net 3 million, roughly one new vehicle for every hundred in operation.

The average moves in months, not years. According to the May 2025 release, it rose by two months for the second year running. An earlier S&P release put the 2024 figure at 12.6 years and the one before at 12.4, so the climb is steady rather than sudden.

A simple steady-state reading shows why the average is so high. A fleet that retires 4.5 percent of its vehicles a year implies a typical vehicle life of more than 20 years, since one divided by 0.045 is about 22. Real vehicles do not retire on a schedule, and many leave service much earlier through crashes or major failures, but the arithmetic explains why the mean age of everything on the road sits so far above the age at which most people buy new.

Passenger cars, light trucks and electrified models

The 12.8-year average hides a split. Passenger cars average 14.5 years and have dropped below 100 million in operation, a level the release says has not been seen since the 1970s. Light trucks, a category that includes pickups and SUVs, average 11.9 years and keep gaining share as buyers shift toward them.

Powertrain matters too. Battery electric vehicles in operation average only 3.7 years old, plug-in hybrids 4.9 and conventional hybrids 6.4, which reflects how recently they entered the market in volume. S&P’s 2024 report put electric vehicles at 3.5 years. Because the electric fleet is young and small, it barely moves the national average, although the 2025 release notes that slowing sales growth is adding upward age pressure to that group as well.

Repair shops, the 6-to-14-year sweet spot and Todd Campau

Todd Campau, S&P Global Mobility’s aftermarket practice lead, is the analyst quoted in the releases. In the 2024 release he said that older vehicles reaching the repair-intensive age range continue to improve business opportunities for companies in the aftermarket and vehicle service sector. S&P’s reports describe vehicles aged 6 to 14 years as a “sweet spot” for that sector: by 2024 they numbered more than 110 million, about 38 percent of the fleet, with S&P projecting roughly 40 percent by 2028.

Campau also cautioned against reading the national average as a local fact. In the 2025 release, he noted that the macro trend for average age may not match what consumers see in their own community, because state differences are large. Montana’s fleet runs more than five years older than the national average, while Colorado and Hawaii are ageing more slowly.

Price is the other driver the reports return to. High prices for new vehicles give owners a reason to keep what they have, and a car that is paid off and reliable is a rational thing to keep running. The S&P aftermarket write-up adds improved durability and a shift from passenger cars to light trucks to the list, and the same figures are archived in the wire copy of the release.

Because S&P put the scrappage rate at 4.6 percent in its 2024 report and 4.5 percent in 2025, each further fall of a tenth of a point would keep roughly 290,000 more vehicles on the road for another year. That small retirement rate, more than any sales total, decides whether the 12.8-year average keeps climbing in S&P’s next report.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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