State Differences in Light-Duty Vehicle Survival Rates

Transitioning to zero-tailpipe-emission electric vehicles (EVs) is a complex and multidecadal process of systemic change. For the U.S., because of the large differences in EV adoption across states, an important component of the process is the movement of used vehicles and their rates of survival across the fifty states. This report describes a step towards creating a model of the stock of used light-duty vehicles with vehicle type, age, and state-level detail. The used vehicle market is influenced by economic and demographic variables, but especially by the sales of new vehicles. These factors affect the uptake of used vehicles, their movements from state to state, and their rates of scrappage and survival. A state's net survival rates, the combined result of migration and scrappage, are shown to depend on a variety of factors that vary by state and vehicle age, but especially employment, income, and population migration. Using state-level data on net survival rates for 2015-2022, survival models are estimated separately for passenger cars, sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and vans, and pickup trucks that successfully represent important differences among states in net survival rates by vehicle age.