Fewer miles traveled by the average car and light truck since 2019 should have negatively impacted aftermarket product volume. The opposite occurred.
Fort Wayne, Ind.—There is bad news and good news about last year’s average miles per light vehicle in the U.S., according to the latest Lang Aftermarket iReport.
The good news: the average miles per vehicle increased last year. The bad news: the typical car and light truck traveled approximately 405 fewer miles during 2024 than five years earlier. In 2020, there was a notable 1,500 decrease in the average light vehicle’s annual mileage, prompted by COVID-19, which has yet to be reversed by the yearly increases in vehicle mileage.
“Despite this, the light vehicle aftermarket increased by more than $13 billion in product sales at user-price from 2019 to 2024,” states the analysis, “overwhelming the 2020 historic decrease in aftermarket sales.”
Here are the key takeaways from Lang’s report.
VIO and Mileage Per Vehicle Up in 2024
Last year, the number of light vehicles in operation (VIO) increased by approximately 0.6%. At the same time, total miles driven by cars and light trucks in 2024 climbed at a slightly faster rate (outpacing the growth of all traffic on U.S. roads).
As a result, the average light vehicle was driven moderately more miles during 2024 than in the previous year, but still significantly below 2019 levels.
Mileage Trends: 2019 to 2024
Over the past five years (2019 to 2024), the nation’s VIO increased at a nearly 0.6% average annual rate. Concurrently, the annual mileage of cars and light trucks in the U.S. declined at a 0.7% average rate over these years.
As a result, there was a total “loss” of nearly a trillion light vehicle miles during these five years, considering the annual increase of cars and light trucks on the road and their lower annual miles each year compared to 2019.
Fewer miles traveled by the average car and light truck should have negatively impacted aftermarket product volume. However, the opposite occurred. While the annual miles per vehicle declined over the past five years, the average age of vehicles increased.
Although annual mileage per vehicle has declined, the high average age of vehicles — especially older cars and light trucks, which consume more aftermarket products per mile — has helped sustain aftermarket product growth.
Five-Year Mileage Decline Per Vehicle
Since 2019, the average age of vehicles has increased by a whole year, and the number of vehicles topping 14 years old has increased.
Vehicle age growth has been concentrated among domestic nameplates. This has enabled domestic nameplate cars and light trucks to stave off more of a decline in aftermarket product volume than that driven by their shrinking VIO share.
Average miles per light vehicle fell from 11,500 to just over 11,000 between 2019 and 2024.
This reduction in miles per light vehicle was mainly caused by the drop of miles per vehicle during 2020, triggered by COVID-19, when the average light vehicle’s annual mileage decreased 13% to about 10,000.
Lang Marketing expects that the average vehicle’s annual miles will increase moderately during 2025 compared to last year. Nevertheless, the average vehicle’s 2025 mileage will remain lower than in 2019.
Vehicle Age Growth Helps to Offset Fewer Miles
Older vehicles average more repairs and maintenance per mile than newer cars and light trucks. Lang Marketing anticipates that the average age of vehicles and the number of older cars and light trucks in the U.S., particularly those topping 14 years, will keep increasing.
This will help boost aftermarket light vehicle product volume through 2026 despite the average vehicle’s annual mileage failing to reach 2019 levels.
Comments are closed.