13 Years and Counting: The Rise of the Forever Car in America

For today, as I mentioned, we'll be discussing the aging fleet of passenger cars in the United States and what that means for the auto finance industry.

So, Chris, tell us a little bit about, you know, what the fleet looks like and how old are these cars? I'll

be honest, this data really kind of blew my mind.

It wasn't something that I had really considered just how old cars are getting.

So the average U.S. vehicle age as of 2025 was almost 13 years old.

Which made me think, okay, 2025, 13 years, we're going back to 2012.

I was graduating from college, starting law school, which Brooke is shaking her head at me.

But I'm just thinking back to that time and those cars and the fact that that's the average age.

We're not talking like an upper bound.

There are cars older than that, like on the roads.

Obviously, cars younger than that.

But the average is at 13, which is kind of crazy to me.

And then the passenger car's average age is higher.

That's 14 and a half.

So then we're talking from 2025.

We use the half year.

We're talking sometime in 2010.

Yeah.

That was a great World Cup, the 2010 World Cup.

We've got the South Africa World Cup.

So just thinking about how long ago That was and that is the average age of cars on the road.

It's kind of staggering.

Why would this be? Why are things going up? You would hope the answer is, well, cars, they are just made better and they just last forever.

And in some cases, that is true.

Cars do last a very long time.