Comment by sebastiennight
4 days ago
If the average car on the road is 10.5 years old, and you assume a flat demand, it is consistent with the lifespan of all cars being exactly 21 years.
(if you look at a random sampling of 100 cars, 5 will be from this year, 5 from 2025, and so on until you've counted the 5 cars from 2005 ; the average age will be 10.5 years)
If you assume that there are more cars sold every year (due to demographics: way more humans are alive today than in 2005), then this is consistent with a useful lifespan of 25 years or more per car since the "10.5" average is skewed younger because of the age pyramid bias.
It's poorly worded, but the rest of the article implies that's average lifespan, not average age.
“The average car lifespan now is closer to 322,000 kilometres, which works out to around 10 to 12 years for most drivers.”
“While the average vehicle in Canada may be designed to last around a decade, there are several factors, some of which are within your control and some of which are not, that can impact how long your car lasts.”
My last two cars were scrapped at 13 years due to rust effects.
The average Canadian drives 15,200km / year is also from that same article you linked.
322,000 km / 15,200 = 21.2 years. Assuming nobody has multiple cars.
From that link: Here's a breakdown of the average annual kilometres driven in some provinces:
Ontario: 16,000 km Alberta: 15,200 km British Columbia: 13,100 km
Assuming Canada uses salt in the winter in the same amounts as the Northern US, rust will eat the car before the mechanicals wear out.
My last two cars succumbed to rust at a little over 20 years of age yet were still reliable, started easily and ran well.
Depends on province; ON loves salt (salt mines and auto manufacturing go hand in hand?).
AB uses grit and brine, I see lots of older cars driving around here (in good shape excluding windshields).