Marshall Brain's Blog

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According to this article, there are about 17 million new cars sold in America per year: "The seasonally adjusted annual sales rate for June was 17.5 million vehicles -- the highest rate so far this year -- up from 15.4 million vehicles last June. The rate indicates what sales would be for the full year if they remained at the same pace for all 12 months. Sales for 2004 were about 17 million."

That leads to the question, "How many cars are there in the U.S.?" This article suggests 226 million. This article suggests 200 million. There are about 230 million adults of driving age (16 and up) in the United States, so these statistics seem to indicate that nearly every America adult living in the U.S. has a car.

Dividing 225 million cars by 17 million new cars per year means that it takes about 13.25 years to replace all the cars in the U.S.