Lifespans of passenger cars in Europe: empirical modelling of fleet turnover dynamics

Cars have a high share of global transport-related CO(2) emissions. To model the market diffusion of new energy carriers and powertrains like electric vehicles, fleet turnover models are commonly used. A decisive influence factor for the substitution dynamics of such transformations is the survival rate of the national car fleet of a country. It represents the likelihood of a car reaching a certain lifespan. Due to a lack of data, current methods to estimate such survival probabilities neglect the imports and exports of used cars. Existing studies are limited to countries with a predominant market of new cars, compared to low numbers of imported and exported used cars. In this study, we resolve this marked simplification and propose a new method to estimate survival probabilities for countries with a high number of imported and exported used cars. Empirical data on the car stock, on inflows of new and used cars, and on outflows of exported and scrapped cars are gathered from 71 national statistics offices. Survival rates of the car fleets of 31 European countries are derived, for which we find a pronounced regional variability. Average lifespans of cars vary from 8.0 to 35.1 years, with a mean of 18.1 years in Western and 28.4 years in Eastern European countries, revealing the high impact of cross-border flows of cars. The study also shows that survival rate estimates can be improved significantly even in the absence of reliable data if a combination of a Weibull and a Gaussian distribution is used. It is likely that the predictive power of existing models (regarding the future environmental impact of car fleets) could be improved significantly if these findings were considered accordingly. The findings of this study can directly be included in fleet turnover and policy assessment models. They also enable the analysis of economic and environmental spillover effects from the imports and exports of used cars between countries. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at (10.1186/s12544-020-00464-0).