Not to be too nit picky, but I think you’re conflating median and average. The median age is probably lower because the age distribution skews older due to vintage cars and such. But you are right about cars lasting much longer today. At the same time, I think there is a point that they are also less repairable. (I’ve heard horror stories of $7k+ touch screen replacements, which control everything from the radio to the HVAC).
Vintage cars are a tiny fraction of the vehicle base, and due to demand and population growth, and the fact that an old car had to have been a new car at some point, there is an immediate bias towards having more newer cars.
Also, unlike with money and wealth and other metrics where averages aren't very useful, the distribution of car ages does not have a tail of incredible outliers. There aren't a lot of billion-year-old cars driving that average away from the median.
Look, it's entirely possible that 'this time it'll be different', and we'll regress on this metric, but at the moment the data does not support it.
