I love numbers, and this Morning Dump is going to tickle my inner Count as we look at what and why Americans are keeping on the road these days. The average American passenger car is now a record 14 (ha ha ha) years old according to a report. The average vehicle (i.e. not just car) isn’t quite that old, though cars are still aging gracefully.
Here’s another number for you: 25 (ha ha ha). That’s the percentage one group is suggesting in tariffs for American cars sold in China, as a sort of retaliatory measure. And speaking of China, our favorite Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares is back and his view is: If you can’t beat’em, join’em. I mean, why can’t we all just get along?
And, finally, Stellantis gets into another fight with the Italian government because it’s a day ending in “y.” How many cars are caught up in this battle? 134 (ha ha ha).
Can you tell me how to get, how to get to The Morning Dump?
[Ed Note: Uh…anyone else wondering what’s with the laugh track? -DT]
Cars Are So Old! (How Old Are They?)
Cars are so old that if you ask the average car on the road in America what its favorite show is, the answer is: Yellowstone. That’s old. [Ed Note: Wait, hold on. Where’d the laugh track go? Does the audience only laugh at numbers? I’m so confused. -DT].
Every year S&P Global puts out data on the average age of cars, light trucks, and both combined. Last year there were 286 [Ed note: … I just… -DT] million vehicles in operation, or a little less than one for every person. A lot of attention is paid to the topline number, and that’s important. If you look at the purple (combined), you’ll see the average age of the passenger vehicle is 12.6 years, which is two months older than last year.
Some of the reasons for this are obvious. The years 2015-2019 were boom years in the car market with a lot of new vehicles getting sold in the United States. The pandemic meant a shortage of most models and, with less new car inventory, the rate at which new cars entered the market slowed. We’re now getting back to more normalized inventories, but high interest rates and economic uncertainty are keeping new buyers out of the market.
New cars are also quite reliable compared to the past, and full of safety features, meaning it’s not quite as big of a deal to keep a vehicle a little longer.
But there’s a bigger factor in cars being older, which you can see in the bifurcation that happened around 2016-2017 in the chart above. That’s when the SUV/Crossover craze, which was already chugging along, started to factor strongly into the calculations
As S&P points out in their report:
Looking at the mix of the fleet, since 2020, more than 27 million passenger cars exited the US 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.
“Consumers have continued to demonstrate a preference for utility vehicles and manufacturers have adjusted their portfolio accordingly, which continues to reshape the composition of the fleet of vehicles in operation in the market,” said Campau.
As fewer and fewer people buy cars, and as fewer and fewer automakers even sell cars, that thick vein of old Camrys and Civics will continue trudging along forever in the secondhand market, but the original owners are moving onto RAV-4s and HR-Vs.
To justify my headline, the best-selling car in America in 2010 (14 years ago) was the Toyota Camry by a large margin, ahead of the Accord and Civic. I don’t have specific numbers on what is or isn’t in the fleet of 286 million cars out there, but those old Toyotas are everywhere and I don’t see a lot of Fusions from that era.
Chinese Think Tank Wants 25% Tariff On Imported Cars With Big Engines
The United States has already instituted a 100% tariff on Chinese-built EVs, which is not many cars in the grand scheme of things. While this move makes the Chinese government deeply unhappy, we weren’t the immediate target of expansion for Chinese EV automakers. That would be Europe, where a mix of protectionism and discontent with Chinese foreign policy has the EU considering bigger tariffs on imported Chinese EVs.
If you don’t believe me, China was willing to raise the cost of importing French cognac until France’s President Macron personally intervened.
Now, China has its sights on something bigger according to a report (via Reuters) from one of China’s official government think tanks:
“The suggested tariff rate adjustment for imported gasoline sedans and sport utility vehicles with engines larger than 2.5 liters is not only in line with WTO rules,” Liu of government-affiliated CATARC told the state-controlled newspaper.
He said it would also help balance domestic and international markets and support a policy push towards green and low-carbon development.
The French dodged a bullet here, as that’s clearly aimed at German automakers, who are the main importers of cars with engines bigger than 2.5 liters into China. Think: Porsche Cayennes, Mercedes S-Classes, Audi Q8s, BMW X5s, et cetera.
I enjoy the concept of China claiming that this policy is about the environment and not a threat of retaliation to Germany.
Carlos Tavares: Maybe We Should Just Join Up With China
Our favorite auto industry leader, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares, sat down at the Reuters Events “Automotive Europe” conference in Munich (he’s pictured above answering questions). He had a lot of things to say, including that he expected a bunch of turmoil and job losses from an invasion of cheap Chinese EVs but, at the same time, that tariffs are “a major trap” for those countries.
Why? Inflation, for one, but also that he thinks automakers need to undergo tough restructuring and countries need to face the reality of a reshaped workforce.
“We are not talking about a Darwinian period, we are in it,” Tavares told Reuters.
Here’s what stuck out to me:
The Stellantis-Leapmotor joint venture, the first one between a Western and a Chinese carmaker designed to sell and produce EVs from a Chinese manufacturer outside China, will help the Franco-Italian group expand its global offerings of budget vehicles.
“We will try to be Chinese ourselves, which means instead of being purely defensive vis-à-vis the Chinese offensive, we want to be part of the Chinese offensive,” Tavares said.
That’s a bold move, Carlos. Let’s see if it pays off.
The Leapmotor T03 is a compelling little car and, while we don’t have specific pricing for it yet, it’ll probably be one of the cheapest cars for sale in Europe when it does go on sale this year, depending on tariffs/duties/et cetera.
Italy Seizes 134 Fiat Topolinos Over Tiny Italian Flag
The ongoing row between Stellantis and Italy is extremely amusing to me. At its core, the issue is that Italy is pissy that the company that was once Fiat (and then Fiat Chrysler) is now more French than Italian. The country wants Stellantis to make Fiats in Italy and Stellantis wants to make money by building cars… probably elsewhere.
Most recently, this blew up when Italy got mad at Alfa Romeo for calling a car not built in Italy the Milano. The response from Stellantis was super catty and the Alfa Romeo CEO openly trolled Italy’s government.
Italy has yet again struck back, this time sending customs police in the port town of Livorno to seize 134 copies of the cute Fiat Topolino. Why? From Italy’s La Repubblica:
The reason for the operation? On the sides they had stickers with the Italian flag, which is why the soldiers of the yellow flames and the officials of the state body challenged Stellantis, the Italian-French company, for the fallacious indication of the origin of the product. It was not “made in Italy”, but manufactured in Morocco and arrived in Tuscany on a freight ship.
My Italian is a little rusty so I relied on Google Translate, which did a great job here I think.
The issue is this little flag right here:
This isn’t an Italian-built car so it doesn’t get an Italian flag. Seems fair to me.
Stellantis resolved the issue by removing the stickers.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I drove to the 2009 Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago all the way from Houston to see Pavement, LCD Soundsystem, and a few others. In the middle of one of the days, Pitchfork put Beach House on one stage and Washed Out on the other stage at the same time. The Venn diagram of Beach House/Washed out fans was, as my friend Dan pointed out to me, a perfect circle. As if this wasn’t already strange programming, the festival followed up Beach House with freakin’ Lightning Bolt! No one stayed. Everyone bolted to Local Natives because the Venn diagram of Beach House/Lightning Bolt fans is just two circles very far apart.
The Big Question
Do you have a car-car. How old is it?
My cars are between 41 and 57 years old with an average age of 46. My pickup truck is 54 years old. I’ve also got two three-wheeled, street-legal, ah, let’s go with “vehicles,” both of which are 43 years old. I think my two-stroke pogo stick is about 52 years old but it’s not street-legal anyway.
My car-car is 11, count them, 11 years old. (ah ah ah ah)
My only car is a coupe from 2007, just pulled it out of winter storage yesterday and it fired right up! (4cyl Tiburon)
Do you live in the Yukon or something? I start getting itchy to drive my summer cars once it gets above 50 degrees.
I’ve been wanting to drive it but just haven’t had time. But I also live in northern Ontario and it’s just finally started to be consistently over 20c (even then not really)
I should also clarify that by car I mean car, I have a SUV and truck that i drive all year.
We have two 2016s and a 1990. A 2016 Mazda6, an 2016 Mazda CX-5, and a 1990 Pontiac Sunbird. Obviously, the 1990 is a spare/fun/car show car and not a daily driver. The 2016s are the kid haulers and dailies. One (the 6) is paid off and has been since 2019. The other (the CX-5) will be soon enough, thankfully. They’re still reliable and safe and economical. I was even able to take them to the Mazda dealer and have their radios updated to have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. With the economic conditions we face, I see no reason to make any vehicular changes short of necessity (accident or major mechanical fault).
I have 8 cars, ranging from 1988 to 2005 in years. I like to think I do my small part to help make that average car age number go up.
The mean age for my fleet is 25! If I remove the outlier (1977 Cherokee) we arrive at 22. Man my stuff is old.
What do you mean, that’s not a 14-year-old Camry, this is, right?…right?…How old am I now?
2018 here bought new, not quite half of the average age, but it is the longest I have kept a car to date.
I’m curious what the average age of vehicles is when adjusted for miles driven.
I hear a lot about how the average age of cars has increased dramatically, but I wonder how much of that is people keeping older second and third cars for occasional use? Cars with minimal economic value can still be reliable transportation. I know several people who keep a second car around because they would rather have a 22 year old backup car than the $2,000 they could get by selling it. In the past, most 22 year old cars wouldn’t have been reliable to warrant keeping and probably would have been scrapped.
As for the age of my “car cars”, my average age is 25.5 years, but I get there by owning a ’76 Beetle and a ’21 Tesla. However, I drive the Beetle ~1,000 miles per year and my Tesla around 10k. If I adjust for miles driven, the average age of my car cars is around 7 years (assuming my logic and math are right, which is no guarantee).
I have my 1990 Sunbird and it has come in handy several times not just as a fun/hobby car for me but as a spare car for one of us when one of the daily drivers is in the shop or being borrowed or otherwise out of commission.
I think that’s a valid point. When I bought my 2013 4Runner in 2019, I was going to trade in my 220K 07 Volvo. When they only offered me 300 bucks, I kept it. I still have it on the road as a spare car/beater, and it now has 233k on it. It’s pretty reliable and cheap to run, I can’t even remember the last time I put fuel in it. haha.
Also remote work may be a factor. I know someone who was thinking about replacing their aging Malibu (non-car person), but he got a fully remote job so he decided to keep it and not spend the money on a new vehicle. His wife has a fairly new car they use when they’re together, his car is basically just for running errand or getting to the golf course.
I have a lot of respect for him, if I was in his situation I probably would have still bought a new car, but it would have been something ridiculously impractical since I wouldn’t be commuting in it.
Good point about remote work. I’m sure reduced commuting is contributing to the increased age of cars. I work remotely 95% of the time, so the number of miles I drive has dropped dramatically (I used to have a daily 40 mile round trip commute).
I also was offered $300 trade for my old car (Nissan Leaf) when I bought my used Tesla. I figured I may as well keep it as a backup for that price. Mine was a bit beat up but was perfectly reliable and dirt cheap to own. However, I ended up getting $5,000 for it in a private sale (no one will be a 1G Leaf at a dealer auction, but they are worth far more in a private sale). I was disappointed to see the Leaf go, but I couldn’t turn down that kind of money. If it was only worth $2,000 or so, I would have kept it.
Wow, nice price for the Leaf! I unfortunately can’t work remote, so I have a 60 mile a day commute 5 days a week, hence the high mileage on all my vehicles.
Similar thing for me – I’ve had a handful of cars over the past 8 years, but when I went to full-time remote work at the end of 2021, I consolidated my fleet to two cars. I didn’t sell my RX-8 because it’s not worth very much, but has been kept in top shape. I can’t get another fun car like it for the ~$6,000 it’s worth in book value, and I’ve grown attached to it since it was the first car I purchased out of college. However, they seem to be appreciating a bit now, so maybe I’ll find an enthusiastic buyer in the near future that will make me consider parting ways…after over a decade of ownership, I’m tempted to get an ND Miata before they go away.
2017 Ford C-Max Energi
2010 Jeep Liberty (has a tow-hitch, so we keep it around)
“Sandy” the superannuated Acura 3.2TL Hardigree wrote about almost 18 months ago on this very site is still kicking, has 248,000+ miles on the odo, and next year will be old enough to rent its own car.
https://www.theautopian.com/if-you-only-own-one-car-make-it-count-member-rides/
My Focus is old enough to buy beer now. My three other cars are 19, 19, and 18.
We just bought a 2024 Kia K5 for my wife in March that replaced her 2009 G6. She considered an SUV but realized she likes to be closer to the ground and feel in control. She loves it, and I’m thankful for the fact it not only has actual gauges, but the touchscreen is limited to audio/CarPlay use, it has physical buttons for everything else. Also, the turbo 1.6 is an unexpected surprise, when it gets on boost it pulls hard. It’s a base model but there’s very little it’s lacking. This car is probably underappreciated in our SUV-obsessed market.
My half-daily* is a 2006 XJ8 which I’m in no hurry to replace because I can’t find anything near as nice for twice what I paid for it 12 years ago, and with my use case it will last forever; I live two miles from work and have many other vehicles to drive.
I have other cars but they are toys and I assume that’s not what you were asking.
So our cars were 15 and 18 years old but are now 0 and 18.
*I say “half-daily” because it splits chores/wintertime with my ’12 Colorado.
You have a rarity in that your wife did not want an SUV. Mine hates my car (Mazda6) because it is “too low and small.” ????
Please tell me the secrets your wife has to convince herself a car is the right move. I need mine to get on board with this.
I have a 30 year old mustang, however my wife is pretty close to average with a 12 year old camry
Hopefully this means the old mindset of if the repair bill = X and the vehicle’s resale value = Y you scrap the car has finally died out. I didn’t bat an eye at making a $900 repair to a $2,000 car a few years ago. I knew I would have saved money within a few months versus the cost of a new or used car payment, and I wound up keeping the car for another 3 years. When I did replace it the family’s finances were in better shape to handle a monthly payment and we still got $1,700 for the old car.
Oh yeah, car ages. I forgot about that. My Mazda3 hatch is a 2017 and my wife’s Accord is a 2018. The Camry I referenced above was 17 years old when we sold it. The car still ran like a champ, but I wanted a hatchback for hauling stuff to complement the Accord and I got a really good deal on the Mazda.
My brother has a 2010 Milan.. about 230k on it. Pretty nice vehicle for the age really
Preferred Mr. Rogers to Sesame Street as a small child. I also recall The Electric Company, Captain Kangaroo and I think Bill Cosby had a show or two. LeVarr Burton’s Reading Rainbow was great as well. I joke that back in my day all cartoons were just robots fighting and GIJoe. Late Gen-X.
Current fleet is 2005 MDX, 2007 Corolla and 2014 Camry hybrid. Solid but boring.
Duck Tales and such came later for me (in air time and age). I LOVED that show when I could see it. I could catch Transformers before school while eating breakfast. Did I have bad parents? Never saw D&D cartoon.
I miss after school and weekend morning cartoons. TNT? used to air all old Warner Bros cartoons in the 80’s.
The new Duck Tales is pretty cool also. I can’t get enough of David Tennant and his Scottish accent.
Answer to The Big Question: 2013 Mustang, so 11 years old.
I find a cup of strong coffee works.
2015… not 10 years old yet, but this is a car I will be buried in – I’m never selling it.
Our oldest “daily driver” is a 2008 STS. We also have the 1979 MGB. Our newest “car” is a 2021 (there’s a truck and SUV in the mix too). Average age of the 5 vehicles is about 11.6, but the B is really bringing that down.
I think his point was that the show itself is for old people.
Yes
53% increase from a dozen people in their 20’s still isn’t that many people. Jokes, but that might be some selective statistics being used there.
At least in my world, literally every person I know over the age of 50 has watched Yellowstone. In fact, a have more than once been cornered by people of a certain age, who want to basically give me a synopsis of the entire show, despite me being direct about my lack of interest.
Meanwhile, I don’t know a single person my age (mid 30’s) or younger that has ever mentioned watching it.
It’s definitely a show for old people.
Never watched Yellowstone. Is it as funny as The Postman and Waterworld?
This is part of the reason my family decided to keep our minivan for a bit longer. We had initially looked at replacing it a year ago and got a quote for trade-in value. We got cold feet and decided to wait a bit longer. We were recently given a quote from the same dealer for 40% of the previous quote. KBB and some Autotempest searches validated the new value, so we are just going to hold onto it for the foreseeable future.
That’s the obvious answer, of course.
However, I think it would have suited the Trolly McTrollerson approach to place a blue sticker over the green part. Et voilà, a French flag!
Or a red circle with a slash through it.
Honestly, my car turns 9 later this year and still seems exactly like new.
When my sister (who I don’t get along with) asked me what to buy, I told her, and told her to keep it until it’s at least 20-25. It’s 13 years old. Haven’t talked to her for years, but my parents say she’s still extremely happy with it and agrees with my assessment that it’s something she could keep for 20-25 years.
Good (<— emphasis!) modern cars actually last now. No, I wouldn’t want to drive a Jeep Liberty longer than the rental place forces me to, but if you buy something solid, maintain it, and do rust prevention (where applicable) there’s a lot of stuff out there you’ll get 20-30 years out of easily.
Let the cars get older, I say.
I think this is an underappreciated part of this.
Maybe this is my own bias talking, but a lot of 2014 cars still seem modern in a way that a 1984 model didn’t in 1994 and a 1994 model didn’t in 2004.
Whether that’s a slower pace in technological and styling changes, or merely improved durability making older cars *look* new, or simply older vehicles being a more common sight, moderately older vehicles just seem to offer a modern driving experience and blend into traffic more than they used to.
100% this, but also cars are just made so well now. It used to be that if a car had 100k miles on it, it was due for replacement. Now cars don’t even need spark plugs replaced until then. We just sold my wife’s 2009 G6 with essentially 200k on it and mechanically it was sound, and the interior had held up remarkably as well.
Also, modern oils are so damn good, engines really don’t wear and fail like they used to. Thirty years ago at our store we sold engine parts all the time and valve jobs were something we did several times a week in the shop. I can’t remember the last time someone asked me for engine parts. Most of what we have left here I think I’m gonna die with.
100% agree. My first car at 16 was a 14 yr old late ’70s 2 door barge. It was just completely worn out and tired with 53,000 miles. Lots of rust, particularly on the undercarriage. The interior had actually held up – no cracking but some bad fading and bleaching. Faded, bleached paint all over with zero shine. Replaced miles of vacuum line and was always fixing/replacing something.
I contrast that with the 2007 Corolla my wife still currently drives, never garaged and lives in western PA. This car still runs like new at 135,000 miles and truly seems it was built to last forever. Most of paint still holds a shine with minimal rust and a near new interior.
I would say all of the above, although the biggest reason my newest car is over 9 years old now is lack of desire for most of the new features being added to cars. Combine that with the fact that it’s much cheaper to own, register, and insure an older car (albeit at the increased risk of an untimely breakdown), and I don’t have any immediate plans to replace anything.
I think there has been a contingent of people saying something similar to this for most of automotive history though. Certainly as long as I’ve been alive.
True, and although this is certainly a reflection of my getting older, I think the level of dissatisfaction being expressed in customer surveys about infotainment and ADAS systems speaks to a broader problem than just “Old man yells at cloud”.
I understand why they do it how they do, but it would make more sense to me to have those surveys come out after owning a car for a year or so, to give people more chance to get used to the systems.
Yes, there has always been someone saying this. But the movement toward paying for subscription-based services rather than paying for direct ownership of the entire vehicle does seem like a fundamental shift
We’re now denying access to hardware already on the car unless monthly payments are made. Car brands are acting less like manufacturers and more like landlords. That’s quite different from the “cars today are too hard to work on” complaint that my grandparents had.
I’ve heard a lot of brands talking about/rumored to be doing this, I’m not aware of any besides maybe Tesla(?) who are actually doing it.
I think it has to do (in part at least) that the most recent technological innovations are not something most people want or asked for. All the things being talked about now are all subjects that allow additional ways to monetize the car and benefit the manufacturers rather than the people buying the car.
I know there are plenty of people that enjoy all the screens everywhere and the clean look when there are no buttons but until there is a better balance that takes actual ergonomics into the design decisions rather than cost cutting and cool tech views into it, I think cars that are just new enough to have Android Auto and Apple CarPlay will still feel plenty new enough.
I have two cars, a 2013 and 2016. I’m still bringing the average up, but not for much longer. I assume minivans are utilities/light trucks legally, so my 2020 isn’t counted there.
Does DT really not know about Sesame Street?
Also Lightning Bolt fucking rules. As an enjoyer of Beach House, I would have stayed for that set.
I know David grew up on military bases, sometimes overseas. Sesame Street still should have been big in his pre-streaming childhood, this may have been the Elmo era? My daughter (born 2005) barely knows it as the market was oversaturated at that point. Contrast that with my ’70s – ’80s childhood.
Happy for any mention of Lightning Bolt; too few people know about that noisy band.
Agreed.
Would The Count’s laughs be spelled “Ha Ha Ha” or “aH aH aH”? It always sounded to me like he’s putting the H on the end due to his accent.
I have only ever seen the Count’s laugh spelled AH AH AH; you’re 100% right here.
I actually follow Count von Count on Twitter (aka X) and he spells it AH, AH, AH. As you might expect, his feed is him counting up. I think he’s up to 4-thousand something.
I do hope that’s a bot because it sounds tedious to do manually but genius to script!