SOUTHFIELD, MI — The number of light vehicles in the United States will grow to 234.4 million units by July 1, 2008, according to a forecast report recently released by R. L. Polk & Co.
The report features annual projections of total light vehicles-in-operation (VIO) for the United States. According to the VIO report, the number of light vehicles on the road will increase by 16 million vehicles over the next five years. VIO is defined as previously registered vehicles, plus new vehicle registrations for the year, less any vehicles that were scrapped during the year.
“Understanding the past and current VIO snapshots is important for the auto industry, but to understand what will happen in the future has become increasingly important,” said Marty Miller, product manager with Polk’s product strategy team. “During the next five years, we expect light truck VIO to grow by over 13 percent and passenger car VIO to fall by nearly 9 percent. This development will certainly have implications for automotive part product life cycles and the aftermarket.”
In 2003, passenger cars comprised 60 percent of vehicles in operation and light trucks were 40 percent of vehicles in operation. Polk projects by 2008 the percentage of cars will decrease to 54.7 percent while light trucks increase to 45.3 percent.
Passenger car VIO will decline slightly over the next several years as older cars are scrapped and replaced with new light trucks (mini-vans, pickups, and sport utility vehicles) instead of new cars, according to Dave Goebel, analytic consultant and model builder for Polk.
“There are several other dynamics at play here,” Goebel said. “Light truck sales have recently outnumbered passenger car sales. We also know from our research that light trucks last longer than cars, and that more recently produced model years out last older model years. Our modeling techniques are based on these known differences in durability across vehicle segments and model years.”
For more information about Polk, go to: www.polk.com.
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