We think you will be surprised by the figure. And an interesting detail is not the number of cars currently in use, but the speed at which this number increases. By 2030, according to some estimates, the number of cars on Earth will be twice as large as at present. This doubling of the number of cars will happen in just 12 years.
How many cars are on the roads?
Determining the total number of cars in the world is an inaccurate science, but some companies give it a chance. According to Ward’s automotive magazine, the number is 1.2 billion. It is important to note that this number includes passenger cars, light, medium and heavy trucks, but not off-road and the like.
Most of them are located in the USA
Guess where is the largest number of cars per capita? Say “in the United States” and you will be right.
In the US, 1 car accounts for approximately 1.3 people, a ratio that has been held for many years. So, if you take the total population of the United States, about 325 million, and use simple math, you get about 250 million cars.
The next largest country is a big surprise – China. There are a lot of people in China – 1.3 billion. Dividing 1.3 billion by the ratio of cars per capita – 17.2 – gives the result of about 76 million cars in the country. After the USA and China, there are such large countries as India, Brazil, Russia, Italy and others.
The size of the market is not equal to the volume of sales.
While the US has by far the largest number of cars on the road, it’s not the biggest market. According to our surveys, the US is what is considered a “mature market” where car sales are mostly replacements of older cars. In 2017, about 28 million new cars were sold in the United States.
On the contrary, most analysts believe that the Chinese car market is on track to resell 20 million units per year for several years, possibly reaching 40 million per year by the end of this decade. This is three times the size of the US market.
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