Earth now has 1 billion vehicles

Earth now has 1 billion vehicles

According to industry trade journal Ward’s, the total number of passenger cars, light-, medium-, and heavy-duty trucks, and buses on the road crossed 1 billion sometime last year.

Wards said the total at the end of 2009 was about 980 million and that just 40 years ago, in 1970, the world total was only 250 million; a number that took 85 years to achieve.

Wards said the 1970 total doubled in just 16 years, to 500,000,000 by 1986 and that it took 24 more years to double again, to the current 1 billion.

With strong growth in emerging regions; particularly China, India and Brazil, analysts predict the world could house as many as 2.5 billion vehicles by 2050.

In the U.S., a mature market with the highest rate of cars per person anywhere – 1 car for every 1.3 people, or three cars for every four U.S. residents – the vehicle population is approximately 240 million and has stayed steady or fallen slightly since the start of the 2008 recession.