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Americans have changed their attitudes about cars - and it's a huge boon for the US auto industry

Nov 22, 2016, 19:36 IST

A rusted car.Mihnea Stanciu/Flickr

America is not a nation that likes to drive old cars - at least we weren't until the financial crisis.

But ever since the end of the crisis, and the beginning of a booming recovery in the US auto market, we've been doing just that.

Since about 2009 the age of a car or truck on US roads has steadily averaged about 11 years - ancient, by American standards.

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Throughout the industry, the expectation has been that this average vehicle age will drop, as American's replace the old cars and pent-up demand from post-crisis period is satisfied.

However, it doesn't look like that's happening. This is from Bloomberg auto reporter Jamie Butters:

Market observers had expected that a lot of older cars would be retired due to a technology gap. Ten or 15 years ago there's wasn't that much of a technology difference between a new car and one that was a decade old.

That's not true these days. Today's new cars, with infotainment and driver-assist technology, and even self-driving features can make a vehicle that's just a few years old seem like it runs on steam.

However, a need for affordable mobility appears to have overcome that expectation, and - in truth - a car that's a decade old was probably still designed and engineered well enough to make it to 200,000 miles on the odometer, if it's well cared for.

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So, it seems, we're turning into a country that drives pretty old cars for a while longer.

Of course those older vehicles will also be replaced, eventually. So the pent-up-demand driver of the US auto market isn't quite ready to go away.

NOW WATCH: Here's all the futuristic technology Uber's self-driving cars use to get around

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