Ever stopped to wonder how many cars there are in the world? Well, allow us to share the answer with you.
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With the global population very soon to reach 8 billion people (at the time of writing) and many of them out on the roads, you’re not the only one who wants to want to find out how many cars there are in the world.
How many cars are there in the world 2022
As of 2022, there are about 1.446 billion cars that call planet Earth home. That’s 17.7% of people who have a car. This is an incredibly large number of vehicles! Traffic starts to make sense when you think about what a feat it is to have created so many running cars.
If you look at the statistics going back over the last 60 years, the increase is rather staggering. Although 2019 and 2020 did take a rather large dip due to COVID-19, 2021 has picked up the pace in car sales again. And as you can see in the graph below, the trend seems to be climbing steadily.
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Which country has the most cars?
Interestingly, there’s more than one way to slice this cake. From a pure statistics angle, China is far ahead of the rest of the world with 302 million cars, followed by the US with 267 million.
Two major countries are virtually tied for the most vehicles per capita in the world: The car-crazy United States and New Zealand. In both countries, there are about 0.9 vehicles for every person.
The more popular way of reviewing this data is cars per capita. Put simply, this is how many cars there are per citizen, granting a fairer way of comparing the countries of the world. The US and New Zealand are neck and neck when you look at it this way – with the US having 0.9 cars per person while New Zealand has 0.89.
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Conversely, the Democratic Republic of Congo has the lowest number of cars per capita with 0.004. That’s only 4 vehicles per 1,000 people living in the DRC. Pakistan is the next lowest with 0.02, which equates to 20 cars per 1,000 people.
What manufacturer produces the most cars per year?
Volkswagen is the world’s biggest manufacturer of cars, with 10.7 million vehicles sold in 2017. But wait, you say. how many cars does Toyota make a year? The Japanese giant actually takes the second spot, with around 10.35 million vehicles sold last year. (Source: Self-reported global sales from manufacturers)
They’re the biggest fish, and they dwarf most competitors. You might consider Ford a global giant, for example, but the answer to how many cars does Ford make a year? Well, the blue oval shifted around 6.6 million vehicles in 2017. Plenty, yes, but well off the pace of the top two.
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Specialist brands recorded but a drop in the vast ocean. Ferrari, for example, shifted 8398 cars, while Lamborghini moved just 3815 vehicles. How many cars does Tesla make a year? In 2017, it reported 101,312 sales, though that was just of Models X and S, with the more pocket-friendly Model 3s adding plenty more in 2018.