Average age of a car hits 10 years
Reports today suggest that the average age of cars on the roads is increasing, surpassing 10 years. This isn’t surprising, given the decline in new car sales and manufacturing.
In the UK, new car sales have generally declined since 2019, with a significant drop in 2020 and a continued decrease in 2021. While 2022 saw a slight increase, the overall trend shows a decline compared to pre-pandemic levels. Ten years ago, annual sales were running at 2.6 million units, but this year, we’re lucky to see 1.9 million units.
The Telegraph reports the average hits 10 for the first time.
This trend is further compounded by the fact that people are driving less due to the WFH and the rise in costs, including new cars. As a result, many people are choosing to stay with their current cars rather than spend a fortune on a new one.
Additionally, new cars often come with annoying safety features that drive people mad. These features include continuous beeps and bobs as the speed limit changes or when you get close to a white line.
In 2022, the average age of cars in Great Britain and the UK was 8.8 years old. Data for Great Britain goes back to 1994, and this age is 31.5% older than the average age of cars over the past nearly 30 years. This significant increase can be attributed to several factors, including high car sales in the early 2000s, a subsequent drop in sales leading up to and following the financial crisis of 2008 and the pandemic, and advancements in technology that have improved car longevity.
The transport policy and research organisation noted that these figures suggest both positive and negative implications for Britain’s drivers. On the positive side, the quality of reliability of the average car appears to be improving, indicating that vehicles are lasting longer than in the past. However, the numbers also suggest that inflated new model prices, particularly during a cost-of-living squeeze, and the transition to electric vehicles have deterred motorists from changing their cars.
Analysing the data by fuel type, petrol cars have the oldest average age at ten years and four months, followed by diesels at ten years and one month. It’s understandable that newer technology has a shorter lifespan. For example, the average plug-in hybrid was three years and four months old at the end of 2024, while an EV is typically just two years and six months old.
At the end of 2024, over two in five (40.7%) of all cars on the road were at least ten years old, a significant increase from just one in three (32.7%) at the end of 2015.
As of the turn of the year, there are almost 34 million licensed cars in the UK. Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, explained that these findings likely reflect several factors.
‘On the plus side, for motorists, the design and build-quality of modern cars means they are looking good and running reliably for far longer – the days of them rusting away before your eyes are well and truly behind us.
‘Even a twenty-year-old car with a full service-history can be a good bet for someone seeking a bargain buy that still looks up to date.
‘The bad news for the environment is that the overall ageing of the fleet means the replacement of fossil-fuelled cars by those with very low or zero emissions is not happening as quickly as policy makers hoped.
‘After they peaked in 2016, lower annual new car sales figures bear testament to a host of issues – Covid, the cost-of-living crisis, mixed messaging over the ban on the sales of new petrol and diesel models – plus the generally good roadworthiness of older cars meaning owners can comfortably adopt a wait-and-see approach as more new electric vehicles arrive in dealers’ showrooms and the public charging network grows.’
