Australia eighth in car per person ranking
January 16, 2009 by Matt Brogan
Who’d have thought it? Australia ranks eighth in the world for the highest ratio of cars per people.
Though we’re hardly a patch on uber-wealthy Luxembourg, with 647 cars for every 1000 people, our per capita ownership rate is very high indeed, surprising given most of us live in big cities with accessible public transport.
Car ownership is also high in wealthy countries with remote rural populations, such as Iceland and New Zealand. Surprisingly, the United States, home of the motor vehicle, has fewer cars per person than either Australia or Canada.
Is Australia the car capital of the world? Let us know how many cars you have in your household.
Source – Economist.com
Print it: 
We’ve got 5 cars at our household of 2 people.
Only 3 are registered though. Considering the statistic puts us at number 8 I dont see how we could be called the car capital of the world..
WOW.
Thats quite a shock.
Considering that almost half of the population are children
Accessible public transport? You obviously don’t live in Melbourne!
We have 6 Holdens at our house, plus 12 scale model HSV’s (mainly of Brocky!!)
I wonder if this takes into account Ford’s? Surely they can’t be classed as a car after all they were Found On Rubbish Dump. Go the might HSV!!!11!!!
I’m guessing this statistic doesn’t coun’t unregistered vehicles? We have 2 adults in my household and 3 registered cars and 2 unregistered cars.
Haha, B-Man, you stole my comment :)
Not about wealth its about necessity…
Australia is a big place and you need a car to take you around because our public transport is stuck in the 80’s… Still 20 min waits for next train.
We have two licensed drivers and 3 registered cars.
If you guys think public transport is average in Melb you ought to try Adelaide – it’s OK in the city, buck sucks in the ‘burbs.
It’s a pity that at HSV’s house they have 6 cars, but all of the drivers share tha same brain. Not you turn today HSV?
I don’t think it includes unregistered cars or the old rusting wrecks you see out in the country in the middle of a paddock – if it did Joe Farmer could claim he had 10; 15 maybe even 20 cars
1 Driver; 2 registered cars.
If the state government wants to improve the public transport system they should have got the companies who run the various motorways or tollroads to build upgrade and maintain the railways and bus lines instead.
Dose the figures include fleet cars, or just privately registered cars? Also are trucks and motorbikes included?
If its un-rego but good enough to pass CAMS scrutineering it should still count.
Melbourne’s public transport is shocking…
the East side pretty much are limited from train access etc. The West has decent rail lines but still lagging behind. North access is pathetic… South is also pathetic.
Which lead to the roads being congested from the west/east gates to the city everyday….
Basically, Mebourne was pathetically planned in terms of logistics…period.
Agree that melbourne’s public transport is rubbish. Not to mention Lynne Kosky and Connex that consistently play the blame game and not get any work done.
As for this article, i’m surprised that USA rank so low, thought they would rank higher than australia
4 drivers, 10 new Commodores and 10 new Fords. Why so many you ask? Because they are such unreliable cars, that when they breakdown (regularly as is the norm) we just use another one.
maybe they should do a study on cars per person per country’s area.that might tell a story.
now i’m a country boy,but i think melbourne’s train/tram system is great.why,because a sydney cab driver will run over your foot if he doesn’t think its worth his time to ferry you somewhere.and yes,its happened!!!
Note NZs position!
Thats because @1988 the government allowed Jap imports into the country em-mass and now nearly every high school kid has got one or two and regularly killing themselves- this from a government that wants people out of their cars and into public transport. Now the roads are so busy. I get people saying “but my kid has to get to work or school”. Yes well 25yrs ago kids had to get to work or school. Don’t be so lazy!
The imports have also stuffed the value of every car so very few people have pride in looking after their car.
An orangatang could see what was going to happen but I guess there’s a lot of money to be made from registrations and taxes and levys etc from all these heaps and thats what most of them are. I do exclude NZ-new japanese vehicles from some of my comments.
accessible public transport doesn’t exist in Adelaide.
Especially trains.
Mind you, if you manage to get on an adelaide train you’ll either make it into the personal notices under deaths/births/marriages in the paper or on BankSA crime stoppers.
Btw, 2 drivers, 2 NT DS pilots, 4 cars, 4 bikes, 1 cat & 1 dog.
The cat & dog don’t drive.
Wonder what the average age of each countries fleet is?
“surprising given most of us live in big cities with *accessible public transport*.”
You jest, surely?
^^^ Agreed!! Surely thats a sarcastic comment? For me to get to the trainstation here in perth i have to wait half an hour at a bus stop + the 20 minutes it takes to get to the train-station while it takes 6min by car and 10min by bike.. its a joke. No wonder our car concentration is so high.
HSV, it’s obvious that you love Holdens and HSVs very much but it’s time you changed your tune a bit. When it’s now actually at a point where all motoring journalists (no matter which way inclined) are saying the Fords are much better than Holdens, you just sound stupid after a while. Especially when HSVs are so unimpressive anyway…
Australia certainly isn’t the car capital of the world. I can’t believe the UK isn’t on there but I suppose there are an awful lot of people that don’t have cars because they don’t need them. I have lots of cars, my garage in Australia is currently set at one but that’s because I want to go home as soon as possible and don’t want to waste time selling them. It’s in the UK where my collection shines.
I see NZ up there at no. 3 – do they also count cars up on blocks or is it because many of their drivers come over here for a holiday and don’t go back. That’s choice bro!!!
Alex – have a closer look UK is also known as “BRITAIN”. Should be Great Britain, cos it is. Woooo scarey
Who are the missing countrys?
Oh HSV you really are a tosser, you are the text book meaning of a bogan
“surprising given most of us live in big cities with accessible public transport.”
Surely the writer of the article jests?!?
There is only me and my wife in household that drive, as kids to young, my wife has a new liberty wagon, i have a company car, and a 87 rx turbo subaru i dont drive it sits in the garage..