There were 276 million light duty vehicles cruising U.S. roads and highways at the end of the first quarter of 2019. That’s up about 1.7% compared with the first quarter of last year when 271.4 million vehicles were counted in the U.S. fleet.
The fleet added 17.1 million new vehicles over the 12 months to March 31, 2019, while 12.5 million vehicles were junked and 42.1 million used vehicles changed hands. A light duty vehicle is a passenger car, pickup truck, crossover utility vehicle (CUV), sport utility vehicle (SUV), or a minivan. The data was reported Tuesday by Experian Automotive in its Quarterly Briefing on automotive market share, trends, and registrations.
The average age of all light vehicles on the road is rising, up from 11.29 years in the first quarter of 2015 to 11.61 years in 2019. On a rolling average basis for vehicles built in the last 25 years, the average age is 10.59 years, up from 10.48 years in 2015. More than 95% of all cars on U.S. roads were first sold in the past 25 years. Sales of new cars in March were down — and this is why used cars prices are rising.
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Among the non-surprises in Experian’s report is the fact that pickups and other utility vehicles now outsell passenger cars. Nearly 56% of all vehicles in the U.S. fleet are pickups/CUVs/SUVs while just over 44% are passenger cars. Those cars are also getting older, up from 11.08 years of age in 2015 to 11.72 years old in 2019. Over the past four years, pickups/CUVs/SUVs are getting younger, dropping in average age from 11.55 years to 11.53 years.
New vehicle registrations totaled 4.1 million in the first quarter of this year, up by 100,000 compared with the first quarter of 2015, but down by the same amount compared to both 2017 and 2018. Used car registrations totaled 10.8 million in the first quarter, up from 10.5 million in 2015, but down from a high of 11.5 million in 2017 and 11.1 million in 2018.
Experian posted the following slide that shows the percentage of all new registrations in the first quarter of the past five years by vehicle body style. The shift in consumer taste away from passenger cars and toward CUVs/SUVs is dramatic. These are the cars Americans don’t want to by anymore.
By manufacturer, General Motors posted 16.6% of all new light vehicle registrations in the first quarter, down from 17.3% in the first quarter of last year. Toyota and Fiat Chrysler ranked second and third with 15.1% and 11.8%, respectively, this year but like GM both posted lower totals year over year. Ford, which ranked fifth in new registrations with an 11.7% share, dropped by half a percentage point.
Only three automakers posted year-over-year market share gains in new registrations: Honda, up from 11% to 11.8%; Subaru, up from 4.4% to 4.9%; and Tesla, up from 0.5% to 1.2%.
More than 93% of all light vehicles sold in the first quarter were either gasoline- or flex-fuel-powered. Adding in diesel-powered vehicles, the total rises to nearly 96%. Of the remainder, 2.35% were hybrid electrics, 1.13% were all-electric, and about 0.7% are listed as other. Tesla sold 79% of all new electric cars in the first quarter while Chevrolet sold 9.1% and Nissan sold 5.6%. No other carmaker at least 2% of the market.
All these numbers drive home a couple of main points. First, it will take a long time to get all the fossil-fuel powered light vehicles out of the U.S. fleet. (But electric cars and buses are slowly taking over.) If history is any guide, more than 25 years.
Second, estimates by industry watchers predict that some 60 million electric vehicles are projected to be sold globally in 2040, equivalent to 55% of the entire global light-duty vehicle market. That will require a massive shift in consumer taste. Maybe it has already begun to change — these cars are so hot they’re out of stock already.
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