At the annual conference ofthe Associação Automóvel de Portugal (ACAP), among other subjects, a topic was discussed about the aging of the car fleet in the country. Right now, according to ACAP, more than 1.5 million cars are over 20 years old.
This number corresponds to 26% of the total number of cars in Portugal and it takes on a different life. This is because 20 years ago, the share of cars older than 20 years was only 1%.
For ACAP this is a problem because modernization has been slow, but there’s more if we compare our case with the European average.
In Portugal, last year, the average age of light vehicles was 13.4 years, while the average age of both light goods vehicles, as well as heavy goods and passenger vehicles, is around 15 years.
In 2021, of the 5.6 million cars in circulation in Portugal, 63% were more than 10 years old. With regard to the average age of vehicles delivered for scrapping, in 2021, the figure was around 23.5 years (for comparison, in 2006, it was 16 years).
ACAP proposes that Portugal reintroduce incentive mechanisms for the scrapping of end-of-life vehicles to accelerate the replacement of older conventional and polluting vehicles with low emission vehicles.
On this point, the Income Improvement Agreement – signed between the Government and the Social Partners – provides for the implementation of a plan to scrap end-of-life passenger cars and that the State Budget for 2023 contemplates the creation of a mechanism to promote the renewal of the car fleet, an incentive that should accumulate with other instruments currently in place.
