How long is a car’s life?

Lately, I read in the newspaper that in Japan the average age since first registration of private vehicles (exclude small cars of 660cc displacement), at the end of March this year, is 7.23 years, which is 0.14 year longer than last year and the longest since the survey has started in 1975.

It has been getting longer year by year for 16 years since 1993 when the bubble economy burst. It means consumers are not buying new cars and sales have been in a slump for a while. Our cars are “aging” like the country’s population.

The average usage of cars from the year they are first registered to the year they are de-registered (which is a car’s “life expectancy”) is now 11.67 years, 0.01 year longer than last year and the longest in the last 3 years.

Some people have been saying for a long time that “new cars are not selling” and all data reported about cars are unfortunately backing it. Thinking positively, it means that people started using things more carefully and that cars are made to last longer; which is not too bad. However, it is a bad headache for us, car dealers and car manufacturers. Cars are now one of the things which you use till it breaks like TVs and fridges.

When you look at the average “life expectancy” of a car in the world, our neighbour Korea has the shortest with 6.6 years among the 13 countries surveyed and the longest was South Africa with 13.5 years, then 13 years in Netherland, 12.5 years in Greece and 12.3 years in New Zealand.

We have been exporting cars to Korea for a long time. One of our Korean customers said he would not be surprised that the average mileage per year is more than 20,000Km whereas it is 10,000Km in Japan. So the more you use cars, the shorter their life gets. It might be because Korean car manufacturers introduce new models every year and Koreans are urged to buy new ones at public auctions.

On the other hand, UAE in the Middle East has decided that cars more than 20 years old are not allowed to be registered after the year 2009 to reduce air pollution and traffic accidents. Also in 2010, it will be reduced to 15 years old and cars of 10 years and older cannot have ownership changed; and these things are already planned. For used car dealers, although it limits the cars we can export but at the same time it increases the demand for new cars. We do not know if it is a good or bad thing for us. At least it is good news for car manufacturers now that they can expect someone to buy new cars.

Do you think that your country might introduce the similar system like this one day?



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(Editor)
JPC TRADE CO.,LTD.
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Japan Used Motor Vehicle Exporters Association (JUMVEA)
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