Vehicle scrappage rate more than doubles in U.S.

Vehicle scrappage rate more than doubles in U.S.

Experian Automotive, which specializes in tracking new and used vehicle sales in the U.S., said this week that Americans are scrapping vehicles at an ever higher rate and that in the last quarter of 2010, the rate jumped to its highest level since ‘Cash for Clunkers’ in 2009.

The scrappage rate in Q4 2010 for cars increased by 28.3 percent, compared with Q3 2010, correspondingly, the rate for light trucks in Q4 2010 more than doubled, rising by 58.2 percent over the previous quarter, Experian reported. For all of 2010, the annual scrappage rate was 5.3 percent for cars and 3.5 percent for light trucks, the company said, noting that in total numbers that came to slightly over 10.1 million units scrapped in 2010.

Experian also reported that the number of vehicles in operation increased slightly to 239,811,984 passenger cars and light trucks with light trucks representing 50.4 percent of those vehicles. Additionally, Experian said that the average age of vehicles is up 3.3 percent, from 9.6 years in Q4 2009 to 9.9 years in Q4 2010. Moreover, the “Detroit 3” (GM, Ford, Chrysler) vehicle share stands at 61.3 percent of the total market.