Survival rate of China passenger vehicles: A data-driven approach

With the rapid growth of passenger vehicle stock, China faces serious environmental and energy security problems. To reduce and remove low-efficiency vehicles on the road in an effort to ensure vehicle safety and fuel efficiency, China updated its compulsory scrappage standard for motor vehicles in 2013. The new standard increases the scrappage VKT (vehicle kilometers traveled) limit from 500,000 km to 600,000 km and removes the upper vehicle age limit of 15 years for passenger vehicles. 2012–2016 National registration data and 1980–2016 annual sales data were used to examine the on-road vehicle age distribution and survival rate of China passenger vehicle. The results showed that the median vehicle lifetime (age at 50% survival rate) had increased by 2.4 years—from 10.5 years in 2012 to 12.9 years in 2016. Vehicle survival rate by vehicle purpose and vehicle type shows that compared to cars and cross passenger cars (mainly minibuses, which are variants of minivans with displacement no more than 1.0L), SUVs and MPVs have higher survival rates. The overall increase in vehicle lifetime and survival rate from 2012 to 2016 will increase total fuel consumption by 2.5%–3.7% in China. •The average lifetime of the China passenger vehicle has increased to 12.9 years.•The survival rate pattern is very different among four vehicle types.•The longer lifetime of fuel-inefficient vehicles would increase fuel consumption.