HIGHWAY VEHICLE MPG AND MARKET SHARES REPORT: MODEL YEAR 1990

This issue of Highway Vehicle MPG and Market Shares Report: Model Year reports the estimated sales-weighted fuel economies, sales, market shares, and other vehicle characteristics of new automobiles and light trucks. The estimates are made on a make and model basis, from model year 1976 to model year 1990. Vehicle sales data are used as weighting factors in the sales-weighted estimation procedure. Thus, the estimates represent averages of the overall new vehicle fleet, reflecting the composition of the fleet. Highlights are provided on the trends in the vehicle characteristics from one model year to the next. Analyses are also made on fuel economy changes to determine what caused the changes. The new automobile fleet experienced a fuel economy loss of 0.4 mpg from the previous model year, dropping to 27.6 mpg. This is the second consecutive decline in the fuel economy of new automobiles since model year 1983. The main reason for the fuel economy decline in automobiles was that the compact, midsize, and large size classes, which together claimed more than 75% of the new automobile market, each experienced fuel economy declines of 0.4 mpg or more. In contrast, the new light truck fleet showed an increase of 0.3 mpg from the previous year to a current mpg of 20.5. The fuel economy increase in light trucks was primarily due to the fact that the large pickup class, which represents 35.0% of the new 1990 light truck market experienced a gain of 0.7 mpg in its fuel economy. Overall, the sales-weighted fuel economy of the new light-duty vehicle fleet (automobiles and light trucks) dropped to 24.8 mpg in model year 1990, a reduction of 0.2 mpg from model year 1989. Total sales of light-duty vehicles in 1990 fell 8% from the previous year, reaching a record low of 13.7 million units (based on data since 1983). Automobile sales dropped for the fourth consecutive year. The trend of light trucks gaining a larger portion of the entire new light-duty vehicle market continued, reaching a record high of 33.0% in model year 1990. For the first time this year, this issue of the report highlights some summary statistics of the entire vehicle stock (vehicles in operation--both old and new).