The world now has over 1.5 billion motor vehicles, up from 250 million in 1970
In 1970 the world had about 250 million motor vehicles. By 1986 the count topped 500 million, and by 2023 it had reached around 1.55 billion, with growth now driven by rising ownership in Asia and Africa. Between 1950 and 1970 the global fleet roughly doubled every decade.
A motor vehicle is a self-propelled land vehicle, usually on wheels, that carries people or cargo without running on rails, flying or floating. Power comes from a petrol or diesel engine, an electric motor, or both in a hybrid. The 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Traffic offered one of the first international definitions, taking in trolleybuses but leaving out farm tractors that only occasionally haul goods, and powered wheelchairs are usually excluded by law so their users need no licence or insurance.
Ownership varies enormously. The United States had about 832 vehicles per 1,000 people in 2016, the highest rate anywhere, after peaking at 844.5 in 2007, while the global figure in 2010 was 148 and developing countries rarely exceed 200. Italy ranked second in 2010 with 690. China's cars and motorcycles multiplied twentyfold between 2000 and 2010, it overtook the US as the largest new car market in 2009, and by the end of 2024 it had more than 440 million registered vehicles.
Governments have promoted alternatives since the early 2000s, citing pollution, oil prices and dependence on imports. Brazil leads in flex-fuel fleets, with the US second; Japan has the most hybrids, 7.51 million by March 2018; and Italy had Europe's largest natural gas fleet. The global plug-in electric fleet passed 40 million in 2024, with China and Europe accounting for more than two-thirds of sales.
Norway shows how quickly things can shift. In October 2018 it became the first country where plug-in electrics made up 10 percent of cars on the road, and their share of new car sales climbed from 39.2 percent in 2017 to 74.7 percent in 2020. Even so, at the end of 2018 plug-ins were only about one in every 250 vehicles worldwide.
Source: Motor vehicle
