Despite the pandemic and two major recessions, the number of cars on our planet is growing unstoppably. Can you guess how many cars are currently driving on Earth’s roads?
Even 14 years ago there was talk of millions, and today that number has increased drastically, writes “Index”. Part of the credit goes to ever-increasing reliability, but perhaps the biggest boost to the car’s growth came from the Chinese market. If we add up all the cars currently driving the Earth, old and new, we come up with a staggering 1.47 billion.
This is an estimate based on data from Hedges & Company, and it also reveals how these cars are distributed across continents and even within countries themselves, The Drive writes.
If you thought North America was still the leader with the most cars, you’d be wrong. The biggest title goes to China with 415 million registered cars in 2022 and precisely thanks to China, the winner among the continents is Asia with a total of 543 million cars.
After Asia comes Europe with 413 million cars and North America with 358 million cars, of which even 78% are in the USA.
Number of cars by region:
- Asia: 543 million
- Europe: 413 million
- North America: 358 million
- South America: 84 million
- Middle East: 50 million
- Africa: 26 million
- Antarctica: about 50
Concentration of cars in relation to the number of inhabitants
The next logical question that many ask themselves is the number of cars in relation to the number of inhabitants. If we take into account that 8.1 billion people currently live on Earth, it turns out that there is one car for every 5.75 inhabitants, that is, that today there are cars for 17% of the population.
Of course, this is only a rough figure as it does not take into account those with multiple cars, children and all those who are not allowed to own a car.
The situation in China is such that there is one car for every 3.5 inhabitants of China. The rest of the continent drives significantly less, just 140 cars per 1,000 inhabitants. North America has the highest concentration with 710 cars per 1000 inhabitants, and the US has three times the concentration of cars among the population than China.
Концентрација на автомобил по регион:
- North America: 710 cars per 1,000 inhabitants
- Europe: 520 cars per 1,000 inhabitants
- South America: 210 cars per 1,000 inhabitants
- Middle East: 190 cars per 1,000 inhabitants
- Asia: 140 cars per 1,000 inhabitants
- Africa: 58 cars per 1,000 inhabitants
- Antarctica: 50 cars per 1,000 inhabitants