Average age is increasing
The automotive industry extends beyond our national borders and that is why we regularly look at what is happening elsewhere. For example, what does the American fleet currently look like? There are new interesting figures. The EV still appears to be a rarity.
In the United States, fuel still costs a fraction of what it costs here and many people regularly drive much longer distances than we do here in Europe. That, together with the not exactly fine-grained charging network in various places, does not really help the EV en masse to bring to the man. What is the representation of fully electric cars now? Well, from new figures from S&P Global Mobility about what Autonews report, it appears that only about 1 percent of passenger cars in the US are fully electric.
In absolute figures we are talking about 3.2 million of the 286 million cars. Last year it was 2.1 million of the 284 million cars, or about 0.7 percent. So the share does rise somewhat. However, S&P Global Mobility emphasizes that growth is starting to level off. For comparison: in the Netherlands the share was 3.6 percent last year.
Average age higher
Perhaps you have been to the United States yourself and got the impression that there are a lot of young cars driving around. However, that just depends on where in the US you have been, because on average it is quite disappointing how young Americans drive. In some parts of California, for example, the average age of cars may well be a lot lower, but the average age is now 12.6 years. That does not differ much from here, because in the Netherlands the average age in 2022 was 11.7 years and in the EU it was 12.3 years. By the way, it does make a difference whether you look at regular passenger cars or pick-ups/large SUVs (light trucks) in the U.S; the first group has an average age of 14 years, the second 11.9 years.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl