Nuts for Stats #1 - Motor Vehicles per Capita

Some beautiful paths can't be discovered without getting lost - Erol Ozan

Welcome to the 1st episode of a new series: Nuts for Stats.

As you may know, I published some statistical posts previously, and now decided to make it a stable series.

Today we take a look at an interesting ranking about which countries have more motor vehicles per capita. This stat includes cars, buses, vans, freight, and other trucks but excludes motorcycles and other two-wheelers.

pic's source Pixabay

Position	Country	Motor vehicles per 1000 people
1	San Marino	1263
2	United States	910
3	Monaco	899
4	New Zealand	774
5	Lichtenstein	773
6	Iceland	745
7	Australia	740
8	Guam	677
9	Luxembourg	662
10	Canada	662
11	Italy	625
12	Malta	615
13	Finland	604
14	Cyprus	595
15	Japan	591
16	Poland	571
17	Germany	555
18	Austria	550
19	Switzerland	539
20	Bahrain	537

As we can expect, in the top 20 positions, we find mostly rich and developed countries with some peculiar places like San Marino (no. 1), Monaco (no. 3), Lichtenstein (no. 5) and Luxembourg (no. 9) that can be considered Tax Havens (so there are particular reasons why they are in top positions of this ranking). Switzerland, Austria, and Germany are in a lower position than what I expected. Probably there is a little more "green awareness" and also stronger alternatives to private motor vehicles for transportation than in other countries. Also, in these countries, train transportation of goods is very stimulated (unlike in Italy), that's another reason for a lower ranking.

In the lower spots of the ranking there are other surprises like Norway (no. 26), Belgium (no. 27), Spain (no. 30), Denmark (no. 30, tied to Spain), Netherlands (no. 32), France (no. 33), UK (no. 37).

Russia is in 49th position, China is in 69th position, Turkey 66th, Brazil 68th.
Two interesting countries are Hong Kong and Singapore, 117th and 95th respectively. They are in such a low position because of the higher cost you have to pay when you choose to own a car in these two countries. There are six main costs to consider: Cost of the car, Interest cost, Road Tax, Car insurance, Parking ERP & Petrol, Servicing. Each of these costs will differ depending on the car, your profile, and usage.

Typically you have to be willing to pay more than $160,000 over 10 years to own a car in Singapore!

Is it expensive to own a car in your country?

you can find the full ranking on wikipedia