The total number of cars around the world exceeded the billion-unit mark in 2010, according to a study by Wards Auto. This figure has essentially doubled since 1986 when the 500-million-unit mark was crossed.
Writing for Autoblog, Jeremy Korzeniewski reports:
"[M]uch of that growth can be attributed to the rapidly expanding Chinese economy. The total number of vehicles registered in China in 2010 came in at a bit over 78 million, a 27.5-percent surge, which puts the country over the figure recorded in Japan but still far behind the nearly 240 million registered vehicles in the United States."
The alarming car-to-people ratio is 1:17 in China and 1:56 in India. "Here in the States, there is one vehicle for every 1.3 people living. In other words, just about everyone of legal driving age has a car, or two, or three," Korzeniewski points out.
Read the full story: World vehicle population tops 1 billion
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