Despite the arrival of electric cars, the Danes' car fleet has not been older in the last 30 years than it is right now. Microcars are to blame.
The Danish car fleet is today the oldest in 30 years. According to Autobranchen Danmark, this is due to several things. Including a decline in sales of new cars and an increase in the number of older cars that are kept running.
Denmark's car fleet has a record high number of passenger cars that are five years old or older. At the same time, the number of newer cars under four years old has fallen to a new low.
Between 2015 and 2020, the number of cars five years old and over was relatively stable. Since then, it has increased significantly.
Conversely, the number of newer cars under four years old increased from 2015 to 2020. Since then, it has decreased significantly.
– Although lots of new electric cars are being sold today, new car sales peaked in 2020 and have never returned to the record-high sales figures from the 2010s, when microcars were all the rage.
"- Used imports of electric cars have also increased sharply in recent years, so that is pushing the age upwards," says AutoBranchen Denmark's CEO Gitte Seeberg in a press release and continues:
– Microcars have proven to be cheap to keep running, and command good used prices, so Danes are holding on to them.
– Perhaps there are also some who have been waiting for smaller and cheaper electric cars to come to the market, which are slowly starting to arrive now.
Among new cars, mid-size SUVs are the most popular segment. Among older cars, however, it is the small cars in the small and micro segments that dominate.
Ten years ago, the picture was different. Back then, SUVs were not as widespread and mid-size cars were more popular.
According to Statistics Denmark, the average age of the Danes' car fleet will be 9.6 years in 2024. This is the highest in 30 years.
Statistics show that Danes keep their older cars for longer, and that more newer cars are leaving the fleet, probably due to leasing.
"With the advent of electric cars, there has been concern about whether it would give workshops less to do, but so far it seems that many still have plenty to do, and the changing age composition of the Danes' car fleet may be one of the reasons," says Gitte Seeberg.
