--- title: The Climate Impact of Fewer Americans Buying New Cars description: The 284 million cars on the road are older than they've ever been. That'll take a toll on the speed of the EV transition. canonical: https://time.com/6280316/ev-impact-aging-gasoline-cars/ author: Jeffrey Kluger article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-05-17T20:27:45.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:03:36.609Z article:section: Climate og:title: Fewer Americans Are Buying New Cars. That's a Problem for the Climate og:description: The 284 million cars on the road are older than they've ever been. That'll take a toll on the speed of the EV transition. og:url: https://time.com/6280316/ev-impact-aging-gasoline-cars/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt09cd8d642e82f809/698a3cfa457a5213f9d679c8/Traffic.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5120 og:image:height: 2880 og:image:alt: Downtown Los Angeles og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Fewer Americans Are Buying New Cars. That's a Problem for the Climate twitter:description: The 284 million cars on the road are older than they've ever been. That'll take a toll on the speed of the EV transition. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt09cd8d642e82f809/698a3cfa457a5213f9d679c8/Traffic.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Fewer Americans Are Buying New Cars. That's a Problem for the Climate > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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Future Proof is TIME's weekly climate and energy newsletter, written by senior correspondent Justin Worland. It connects the energy transition to the decisions reshaping business, technology, policy and markets. #### Where can I follow the energy transition as a business story? Future Proof covers climate and energy as an economic and business story rather than only an environmental one. It publishes every Friday and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes Future Proof? Justin Worland, a senior correspondent at TIME and an award-winning climate journalist, writes Future Proof. #### Is Future Proof free? Yes. Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-futureproof-2026q3/newsletters?i=6f795f1a-8794-4e90-ac99-0b36645f60c9&cr=time-nl-futureproof-2026q3-v1) ## Video: TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2022: Rivian [Watch (HLS stream): TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2022: Rivian](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/MDTRHmVn.m3u8) (3:06)  _Published 2022-03-30. Rivian CEO and founder R.J. Scaringe on the inspiration behind the company._  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large May 17, 2023 8:27 PM UTC  Traffic on downtown Los Angeles freeway. An aging fleet means dirtier air Traffic on downtown Los Angeles freeway. An aging fleet means dirtier air Getty Images  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large May 17, 2023 8:27 PM UTC There is a new population of the elderly in the U.S. They are 284 million strong, their numbers are growing everyday, and their age is eye-popping: 12.5 years on average. That may not be much for you and me, but this senescent set is not made up of people, but cars. Never before has the American fleet of vehicles been so old—and that spells bad news for the long dreamed-of phase-out of gas powered vehicles, and the environment as a whole. --- ### More from TIME --- The new news on old cars comes courtesy of [a recently released study](https://www.spglobal.com/mobility/en/research-analysis/average-age-of-light-vehicles-in-the-us-hits-record-high.html) by [S&P Global Mobility](https://www.spglobal.com/mobility/en/index.html), an independent research and policy group, which regularly tracks the state of the U.S. auto fleet and has seen some troubling trends of late. For six years in a row, cars on American roads have been getting older, with the biggest jump coming in the last three years, thanks in large measure to the COVID-19 pandemic. Supply chain issues caused by the pandemic and the related lockdowns led to a global shortage of computer chips on which new cars are increasingly dependent, driving down automotive supply and driving up vehicle prices. The average sticker price of a new car [currently tops $48,000](https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a43611570/average-new-car-price-down-still-high/)**.** Interest rate increases to battle inflation have driven the [average loan rate](https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/auto-loans/average-car-loan-interest-rates-by-credit-score) for new cars above 6%. All of this has made people who would normally be ready to trade in their old cars more likely to hold onto them longer. Retail sales for new cars fell 8% from 14.6 million vehicles in 2021 to 13.9 million in 2022; that’s the lowest total of new car sales in over a decade. “Multiple factors have driven vehicle costs higher while the cost of eggs and groceries and gasoline and everything else has gone up too,” says Todd Campeau, associate director of aftermarket solutions with S&P Global Mobility. “So the disposable income for households is already constrained and for many people, the thought of taking on a new car loan is something they’re reluctant to do.” --- **_A version of this story also appears in the_** **Climate is Everything** **_newsletter. To sign up,_** [**_click here_**](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/newsletters/?newsletter%5Fname=climate&source=onsite)**_._** --- That hits the climate in a number of ways. For one thing, says Campeau, cars built 12.5 years ago are simply dirtier than cars that have benefited from improvements in fuel efficiency built into newer gas-powered vehicles. What’s more, even an old car that started out fuel-efficient will become less so as it ages. “A car gets worse over time,” says Campeau. “It becomes less efficient. Just like humans as we get older, our bodies do not run at optimum once we get past a certain age.” For electric vehicles, the question of age is moving in the opposite direction. There are currently [just over two million EVs](https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-12/charging-into-the-future-the-transition-to-electric-vehicles.htm) on the road in the U.S., representing less than 1% of the overall fleet—and they’re getting younger, not older. The average age of an EV is now 3.6 years, according to S&P, down from 3.7 in 2022\. That’s because existing owners with money to spend are trading up, while less wealthy buyers are frozen out of the market as they face high interest rates coupled with the sticker shock for EVs, which currently cost close to [$59,000 on average](https://caredge.com/guides/average-price-of-an-electric-car). As to what this means for the replacement of the more than quarter-billion gas-powered vehicles on the road with clean electric ones, the outlook is not good. As owners hold onto their cars longer and the cost of electric vehicles remains high, Campeau does not see an electric switchover happening any time soon. Even if every vehicle sold going forward were electric, it would still take a decade to replace just half of the gas-powered fleet. Since every vehicle sold most assuredly won’t be electric, Campeau doesn’t see EVs outnumbering combustion vehicles for decades. “I would put it in the 2040s,” he says. “Maybe even 2050.” American motorists may indeed be looking at a climate-friendly, all-electric future—but that future will be a long time in coming. ## Transcript We're in a very unique moment in time  where our society has the ability to impact   the world that we live in 10 generations from now; 20 generations from now. Our decisions are on what   we do in terms of minimizing the amount of carbon  we put into the atmosphere, to the way in which we   protect all the biodiversity on the planet. All of  that's going to be felt for generations to come. It's the core motivator behind really all the  energy our teams are pouring into the products   and we need to help drive that excitement around  making this transition towards electric vehicles. So I grew up since I was about this tall, massively  into cars and essentially anything with wheels. It was incredibly upsetting as I started to realize  that these things that i love so much were at   the center of so many of the problems we have  around the world. Whether it's local air quality,   climate change, a lot of our geopolitical issues. That sort of realization created this tension   that ultimately led to me realizing I wanted to  start something to make the things that i was so   excited about part of the solution. We're building  a portfolio of Rivian products. There'll be  different form factors, different sizes, different  price points. We wanted to make sure the products   we're creating challenged existing expectations so they're both really fun to drive and also   really efficient. One of the reasons we started  with the pickup truck; not only did those really   embody the idea of adventure, those are also the  least-efficient vehicles in the road. We said let's   make a vehicle that's simultaneously just as  capable and as exciting as the best vehicles   in the world but does it in a really sustainable  way. And in parallel to that, we're also building   a commercial side of the business. We did that  with close partnership and a close relationship   with Amazon, where we had drivers in vehicles  we watched them we got feedback from them. And all of that fed into all different types  of tweaks and improvements to make the vehicle   as easy to use as possible, while also making it  something that's very efficient to run as a fleet. It really comes down to this desire to help  drive towards sustainability and have impact. And it became ever more important when  I had kids. My oldest is now six and   when I see how he looks at the world, and the  idealism he has around what the future holds,   I feel a real sense of responsibility to the  products we're creating and how those are going   to enable and hand off a world to my kids, and then  in-turn his kids, and so on and so forth. That's   really a motivator and it's something that we've  really built into the way we think as a business. The question I get asked most commonly  is: "When is my vehicle going to arrive?" Which is exactly the question we want to have,  and exactly the type of excitement we want to see. So the pressure's certainly on us  to ramp as quickly as possible, to   get products out into the world. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6280316/ev-impact-aging-gasoline-cars/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6280316/ev-impact-aging-gasoline-cars/"},"headline":"Fewer Americans Are Buying New Cars. 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