Even though we as Americans like dining out a lot more than cooking at home, even if it costs more, we’re not totally crazy spenders. From Sherwood News:
We are keeping our cars for longer.
We are keeping our iPhones for longer.
Dang, looks like I have to keep the 2015 minivan around at least three more years in order to keep my frugal cred. (Minivans are classified as light trucks!)
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Definitely keeping my car I bought brand new. I love having a car that is paid in full and very driveable.
How is this “average” calculated? 12-14 years seems consistent with the lifespan of a car that lasts for about 200,000 miles (around 15k miles per year). However, lifespan is far different from average age.
If the average age is 12 years, that would mean for every new car sold, there’s someone driving a 24-yr old car? That doesn’t seem right to me, but…
About 15 million new cars were sold in the US last year. There are close to 290 million vehicles on the road, so that works out to roughly 5% of cars on the road being new each year. (Over 10 years, 50% of the cars would be replaced.)
Just in my personal observations, I see lots more cars 0-3 years old than 20+ years old. There’s some serious location bias, though, as I’m in an affluent area and I trust other areas have much older cars.
Jonathan,
Wouldn’t owning a minivan automatically qualify you for frugal cred?
A better measure of vehicle age would be the median age of vehicles. It looks like their data includes any registered vehicle. So, as long as your neighbor’s 1957 Chevy is registered, it would increase the average age. I recognize that classic car registrations are a small number percentage-wise, but they would have some impact on the average. This is the same reason that summarized home prices are usually reported as a median rather than the average. Still, I don’t doubt that our cars are getting older.
Haha, I dunno, I actually consider my minivan quite luxurious. Air conditioning, power sliding doors, tons of room, remote start/unlock (keep keys in pockets all the time)… luxury!
Can’t speak for the iPhone but cars are built a lot better now. I still remember American cars from the 70s.