How Many Cars Are In The World?

How Many Cars Are There In The World Today?


How Many Cars Are In The WorldEstimates on how many cars are in the world today vary by a surprisingly wide margin. Many of the estimates are outdated and/or incomplete. Here are the current statistics on how many cars are in the world today.

As of 2023, there are 1.49 billion cars in operation worldwide, including 1.11 billion passenger cars and 380 million commercial vehicles. To put that into perspective, the number of cars in the world reached 1 billion in 2009.

What percentage of these cars use clean technology?
Despite all of the hype surrounding battery electric, plug-in hybrid, and fuel-cell cars, over 98% of all automobiles on the road today are still powered by gasoline or diesel.

How much pollution are these cars producing?

The 1.49 billion cars on the road will emit 6.9 billion metric tons (equivalent to 13.8 trillion pounds) of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere this year. To put that into perspective, that's equivalent to burning all of the coal in a fully-loaded coal train that stretches 347,000 miles, long enough to wrap 13.9 times around the earth at the equator.*

* A typical non-electric car produces about 4.6 tons of carbon dioxide per year; burning 1 ton of coal produces 1.9 tons of carbon dioxide; each 50-foot-long coal rail wagon holds about 100 tons of coal, and the earth's circumference at the equator is 24,902 miles, which is 131.5 million feet.

Which car markets in the world are growing the fastest?

The developing economies of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) accounted for the largest share of the growth in the car market. But featuring especially large even among the BRICS countries is China, the world's second largest economy, the fastest growing large economy, and the largest car market.
Related - How many cars are in China?

Related - How many cars are in the US?

How many tires do the world's cars need?

The 1.49 billion cars on the road in 2023 need a set of new tires about every 2 years, or 2.98 billion tires annually, and those 2.98 billion tires consume over half of the earth's rubber production, which of course burns even more fuel and cause even more pollution.

All of these numbers are set to rise steadily as the earth's population grows and countries like India and China, both with populations of 1.41 billion, continue to industrialize and grow their middle classes at an even faster rate than the other segments of their population.

Related:

Under-inflated tires

Who is responsible for global warming?

Environmental defense organizations