- NHTSA's own estimate puts typical lifetime mileage at about 152,000 miles for cars and 180,000 miles for light trucks (pickups, vans, and SUVs).
- Half of all cars are off the road by around age 15; half of all light trucks make it to about age 16, per EPA survival-rate data.
- Only 0.7% of cars and 8.9% of light trucks are still registered at 30 years old.
- A car's annual mileage declines steadily with age, a brand-new car is driven about 13,843 miles a year, dropping to 6,962 miles a year by age 20, roughly half as much.
01 Introduction
"How long does a car last" doesn't have one single government answer, but two federal studies together give a real, quantified picture: how many vehicles are still on the road at each age, and how many miles those vehicles rack up before they're gone. NHTSA's 2006 Vehicle Survivability and Travel Mileage Schedules study and EPA's 2016 midterm CAFE evaluation both estimated these curves for the full national vehicle fleet, and their tables are reproduced here in full.
U.S. DOT/NHTSA, Vehicle Survivability and Travel Mileage Schedules (2006); U.S. EPA, EPA-420-D-16-900 (2016), via DOE/ORNL Transportation Energy Data Book, Edition 40, Tables 3.14 and 3.15.02 Typical Lifetime Mileage
NHTSA's 2006 study is still the government's standing estimate of how many miles a vehicle accumulates over its full lifetime, from new until it's scrapped or permanently retired:
| Vehicle Type | Typical Lifetime Miles |
|---|---|
| Cars | 152,137 |
| Light Trucks (pickups, vans, SUVs) | 179,954 |
Estimate your vehicle's total driving cost using official EPA fuel economy data.
Use the Calculator03 Vehicle Survival Rates by Age
EPA's 2016 report separately estimated what share of cars and light trucks are still registered and on the road at each age, from brand new (age 0) through 31 years old. The table below shows the full curve.
U.S. EPA, EPA-420-D-16-900 (2016), via DOE/ORNL Transportation Energy Data Book, Edition 40, Table 3.15.| Vehicle Age | Cars | Light Trucks |
|---|---|---|
| New (age 0) | 100.0% | 100.0% |
| 5 years | 97.4% | 94.1% |
| 10 years | 86.2% | 78.4% |
| 15 years | 51.0% | 55.3% |
| 16 years | 41.5% | 50.2% |
| 20 years | 15.7% | 32.4% |
| 25 years | 4.0% | 17.4% |
| 30 years | 0.7% | 8.9% |
04 How Much a Car Gets Driven as It Ages
Surviving vehicles also get driven less each year as they age. EPA's report estimated typical annual mileage at every age from 0 to 30 years; the table below shows the same selected ages as above.
U.S. EPA, EPA-420-D-16-900 (2016), via DOE/ORNL Transportation Energy Data Book, Edition 40, Table 3.14.| Vehicle Age | Cars (mi/yr) | Light Trucks (mi/yr) |
|---|---|---|
| New (age 0) | 13,843 | 15,962 |
| 5 years | 12,337 | 14,081 |
| 10 years | 10,509 | 11,595 |
| 15 years | 8,629 | 9,239 |
| 20 years | 6,962 | 7,358 |
| 25 years | 5,778 | 6,481 |
| 30 years | 5,358 | 6,466 |
The decline is steady rather than sudden: a car's annual mileage drops by roughly half between new and age 20 (13,843 to 6,962 miles a year, a 49.7% decrease), and light truck mileage falls by a similar 53.9% over the same span. This tracks with how vehicles are actually used over their lives, a car's primary household usually replaces it with something newer well before it reaches 15 or 20 years old, and the aging vehicle often becomes a lower-mileage second or third car rather than disappearing immediately.
Calculated: (13,843 − 6,962) ÷ 13,843 = 49.7% (cars); (15,962 − 7,358) ÷ 15,962 = 53.9% (light trucks). U.S. EPA, EPA-420-D-16-900 (2016), Table 3.14.05 What This Means for Buying and Keeping a Car
These figures describe the on-road vehicle fleet, not the average age of vehicles currently registered. This site's real-world fuel economy analysis separately calculates a weighted average on-road vehicle age of 10.3 years from 2022 travel-survey data, that's a snapshot of how old the average car currently in use is, which is naturally younger than the ~15-year median lifespan described here, since a fleet's average age reflects vehicles at every point in their life, not just the ones nearing the end of it.
For a buyer deciding how long to keep a car, the mileage-by-age table is the more useful reference: a car's expected remaining life, in miles, is well below the naive "average annual mileage" figure once it passes 10-15 years old, since both survival odds and typical usage drop together. A well-maintained car bought new and kept to the median 15-year lifespan should reasonably expect to see something in the range of NHTSA's 152,000-mile lifetime figure, not the roughly 180,000-208,000 miles a flat "annual mileage times years owned" calculation would suggest.
06 Data Sources
- U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: Vehicle Survivability and Travel Mileage Schedules (January 2006).
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Draft Technical Assessment Report: Midterm Evaluation of Light-Duty Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards and Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards for Model Years 2022–2025, EPA-420-D-16-900 (July 2016). epa.gov
- DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory: Transportation Energy Data Book, Edition 40, Tables 3.14 and 3.15 (compilation source for both studies above).
- This site's related analysis: Real-World Fleet Fuel Economy vs. New-Car MPG and Vehicle Maintenance and Repair Costs by Year.