By SEMA Editors
Automotive aftermarket companies need to understand the size of their
potential market in order to make informed decisions about which products to produce or carry.
While the Market Sizing chapter of the 2023 SEMA Market Report covers the current level of sales for different products and vehicles, the Vehicle Information chapter helps SEMA Business Members better understand a key piece of the potential market--how many vehicles are actually on the road.
According to the report, the total light-duty vehicle fleet stood at more than 285 million cars and light trucks at the end of 2022. Most of these are from model years '02 and onward (89% of registered light vehicles), and the population of a given model year starts to drop once it has been on the road for more than a decade.
For vehicle registrations, the U.S. passenger vehicle fleet increased by 1.4 million cars and light trucks from 2021 to 2022. This is a step down from the nearly 2.5 million unit increase between 2020 and 2021. New light-vehicle sales finished 2022 roughly 1.2 million vehicles below its 2021 levels and used-car transactions dropped by 4.5 million vehicles in 2022.
All of this is due to ongoing constrained inventory, high prices and rising interest rates for both new- and used-vehicle loans. Consumers are holding onto their cars longer, with the average age of a vehicle being over 12 years.
The Vehicle Information section of the report also includes in-depth data on annual new-vehicle sales by segment, the percent of registrations by vehicle segment, a new-vehicle sales forecast and a powertrain sales forecast. SEMA Business Members can learn what the data means and how it can help their business by downloading the report for free at sema.org/research.