Even though new and slightly used electric cars are flooding in, it is not enough to seriously do anything about the average age of the car fleet, which is over 10 years.
Danes drive around in really old cars. Even though there are six times as many cars on the roads now as in 1962, we drive around in some 'old corpses'.
This is shown by the latest census from Statistics Denmark .
It is especially the average age of the cars on the small islands around the country that is driving up the average age.
While the cars are on average the newest in East and North Zealand outside of Copenhagen, the cars are a full 15 years old at Æro in the South Funen archipelago.
Samso follows with cars that are on average 14.4 years old. On average, Danish private cars are still driving on the roads at home when they are 10.2 years old.
Danes' cars have only gotten older – they are now significantly over 10 years old.
A year ago, private cars were on average 10.0 years old. In actual figures, there are 484,900 electric cars and plug-in hybrids at the beginning of 2025, compared to 329,000 a year ago.
This also means that there are now fewer than 2.5 million pure fossil-fuel cars on the roads in Denmark. But electric cars are not as popular with drivers everywhere.
Figures from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, ACEA, show that the European car fleet as a whole only consists of 1.8 percent pure electric cars.
And even if you add up hybrid and plug-in hybrids, the number of 'electrified' cars remains below 4 percent. 3.9 percent to be exact.
Here in Denmark, there are fewer buses and vans, while passenger cars are gaining ground. The total number of motor vehicles, as Statistics Denmark calls it, was 3,465,100 at the turn of the year.
Since January 1, 2021, the stock has grown by 113,500 vehicles, or 3.4 percent. And although roughly the same number of new cars were sold in 2024 as in 2023, we are a long way from the heyday.
Between 2015 and 2020, 200,000 new cars were sold per year in Denmark, while over 400,000 used cars changed hands. However, several experts have already assessed that such sales figures will never happen again.
