SOUTHFIELD, Mich. -

If you feel like you’ve aged a bit after the pandemic, you’re not the only one.

The vehicle population is getting older, too.

According to IHS Markit, the average light vehicle in operation in the U.S. is now 12.1 years old. That’s an increase in age of two months during the course of 2020.

IHS attributes the increase to COVID-driven new-vehicle sales decline, but interestingly enough, a “sudden” lift in scrappage, as well.

“Typically, an increase in scrappage rate would be expected to be a headwind to average age, but coupled with the lower new-vehicle sales and reduced vehicle miles traveled, the combined impact proved to be a tailwind,” the firm said in a news release.

New-vehicle sales actually bounced back in the back half of the year, and scrappage rates and miles traveled reductions had the “most significant impacts” to the number of vehicles in operation during 2020, IHS said.

The more than 15 million units leaving the active vehicle population marked the highest scrappage volume in two decades, IHS said. And the scrappage rate of 5.6% was the second-highest figure during this time period.

IHS did acknowledge that these two numbers, “point to the possibility that the volume may be inflated due to a larger percentage of vehicles that may not have been registered due to lags in state requirements for registration renewals, more vehicles being put into ‘storage’ due to COVID-19 restrictions in many locations and work from home initiatives.”

That remote work, along with lockdowns, proved to be what drove miles traveled down by more than 13%, the company said.

“2020 was a radical departure from the norm and challenged assumptions about how vehicle owners use their vehicles and accumulate miles; from a vehicle fleet perspective, one of the real surprises was the number of vehicles that suddenly exited the active population,” said Todd Campau, associate director of aftermarket solutions at IHS Markit, in a news release.

While a long-in-the-tooth vehicle population will certainly be a nice boon for service business, don’t expect this rate of increase to last, as new- and used-vehicle registrations climb in 2021, according to IHS.

Granted, the amount of new cars produced has taken a hit due to the microchip shortage, but IHS is still forecasting 16.8 million new-car sales this year, which would slow the rise in average vehicle age.

The company also points out that when some consumers were not driving their vehicles amid the pandemic’s deepest point, they may have let their vehicle registrations expire.

“The microchip shortage and subsequent inventory levels for new vehicles have created a situation in which used-vehicle values have gotten extremely high, so a vehicle owner who may have kept a vehicle in the garage that they were not using in 2020, now instead may take advantage of the opportunity to either reduce the number of vehicles in their garage, or trade up to something newer while the demand and value is extremely high on their used vehicle,” Campau said. “This is great news for the aftermarket as subsequent vehicle owners typically have a higher propensity to use independent repair shops for necessary maintenance and repair.”

As of January, there were 279 million vehicles in operation, IHS said. A year earlier, there were close to 281 million, making this the first decline since 2012, the company said.

However, the industry should see some “strong growth” in the population of vehicles ages 6 to 11, what IHS considers to be the “sweet spot” for the aftermarket.

There is also some growth being seen in the electric vehicle market, where there are now close to 1 million units in operation, IHS said.

In the last five years, the average age of EVs has remained between 3.8 and 4.1 years old, coming in at 3.9 years old currently, the company said. A strong percentage of overall EV VIO numbers has remained new EVs.

And the overwhelming majority of later-model EVs are still owned by their original owners. According to IHS, 89% of electrics from the 2016-2020 model years are registered to the original owner. Comparatively, the number for gas-powered vehicles from that model-year group is 68%.

“As EVs begin to gain more market share and become more prominent in the used vehicle market, it is expected that their average age will begin to increase,” IHS said. “At that time, the aftermarket will begin to see repair opportunities shift in response to the increased EV market share.”