"In the age of rhetoric, East Lassie strives to maintain a solemn attitude towards facts, knowledge, and writing.
The latest statistics just released by the Ministry of Public Security say that by the end of March this year, there were 307 million cars and 450 million drivers on the mainland.
Globally, the continent now has the most cars, produces the most cars each year, and sells the most new cars every year – and our cars are up to date.
▲Expressway toll stations during the domestic long holiday (Xinhua News Agency photo)
▍ How many cars are there in the world?
According to estimates by hedges & Company, a market data analytics firm, there are now about 1.446 billion cars worldwide.
In this way, There are indeed many cars in China, and more than 20% of the world's cars are in our country. In 2020, the number of cars in mainland China reached 281 million, surpassing the United States (276 million vehicles) for the first time to become the world's first, and now it has exceeded 300 million, firmly occupying the boss position.
Specific to each continent, the number of cars is as follows:
1. Asia: 531 million cars
2. Europe: 405.3 million vehicles (282 million in the EU, 123 million in non-EU countries)
3. North America: 351 million cars
4. South America: 83 million cars
5. Middle East: 49 million cars
6. Africa: 26 million cars
7, Antarctica: about 50 cars (what are these 50 cars?) See the end of this article)
▲Schematic diagram of car ownership on all continents of the world (Source: Hedges & Company)
▍Are there really a lot of cars on the mainland?
The world now produces about 80 million cars a year (the highest production volume was nearly 100 million in 2017), of which about a third is produced and sold in China.
The total number of cars in the mainland is large, but on average, it is less than a person.
There are now 1.41 billion people on the mainland, with an average of 4 people having a car. According to the international number of cars for 1,000 people, it is about 210 cars per 1,000 people.
Most of the thousand people in developed countries have four or five hundred cars, and countries with high car penetration rates like the United States have more than 800 cars per thousand people, close to one person per person.
In the ranking of 1,000-person car ownership in various countries in the world, the mainland probably ranks more than 70.
▲The average car ownership of Chinese is not high
However, it cannot be simply used as an analogy with the number of cars owned by a thousand people. The public resources such as roads and parking that the mainland can provide for cars are already very tight, and the number of thousands of people to reach the level of developed countries seems unrealistic at present.
▍ Continental cars are very new
The current "average age" of the mainland is about 5 years.
Compared with developed countries, the cars running on the road in China are really too new. In several major automotive markets around the world, Chinese cars are up to date.
By the end of 2021, the average age of a car in the United States is 12.1 years, the average age of a car in the European Union is 11.8 years, and the average age of a car in Japan is 8.8 years.
In recent decades, the average age of cars in developed countries has been slowly increasing. In the United States, for example, the average age of the car in 1995, when this data was first available, was 8.4 years, by 2003 it was 9.7 years, by 2013 it was 11.4 years, and now it is 12.1 years.
There are still about 5 million cars produced in the United States from 1919 to 1981
The car elimination cycle in developed countries is getting longer, on the one hand, because with the advancement of technology and materials, the durability of cars is getting better and better, on the other hand, people's attitudes towards cars have matured, and the desire to change cars is decreasing.
Our cars are new because the mainland is still an emerging car market, and it has only been 13 years since 2009, when sales suddenly increased significantly (more than 10 million units).
▲ Since 2009, China's automobile sales have surpassed the United States to become the world's first
In the past 13 years, China has sold a total of 300 million cars, in other words, the cars running on the road now are basically all after 2009.
Another reason for the new Chinese automobile is that many cities restrict the use of cars emitting below The Second Year, resulting in a large number of cars produced before 2009 driving into the scrap yard ahead of schedule.
Finally, let's talk about cars in Antarctica.
The activities on Antarctica are mainly the personnel of the research station, as well as a small number of tourists and explorers. Most of Antarctica's land transportation is crawler vehicles, and the number of real wheeled cars is very small, about 50 or so. Of these, 27 are special vehicles produced by an Icelandic tuning company, mainly on the basis of Toyota pickup trucks to increase the body, increase tires and wheelbase, and reduce or increase tire pressure at any time.
▲ In Antarctica, we use deeply modified special-purpose vehicles
This modified car is very powerful in ice and snow, can drive to the South Pole, and the biggest advantage is that it is faster than the tracked vehicle and has low fuel consumption.