Band 7.5 — Table: Car Ownership in Four Countries (2000–2020)

The table shows car ownership rates, measured per 1,000 people, in four countries at ten-year intervals between 2000 and 2020.

Overall, ownership climbed in all four countries, yet while the American rate was already approaching saturation and grew only sluggishly, the developing nations expanded from very low starting points at an extraordinary pace.

The USA remained far ahead throughout the period. With 770 cars per 1,000 people in 2000, it already possessed three times the Polish rate, and its figure crept up only modestly to 810 by 2020. Poland, however, closed much of this gap, as ownership more than doubled from 260 to 620 over the two decades.

The Asian countries began almost without private cars at all. China's rate exploded from a mere 10 per 1,000 in 2000 to 220 in 2020—a twenty-two-fold increase and comfortably the fastest growth in the table. India followed the same direction more gradually, rising from 6 to 40. Even so, ownership in both countries remained a small fraction of the American level by the end of the period.