Category: News

We’d like to wish all or readers a safe and happy festive season. We’ve been forced into an earlier break than we’d like due to a tradesman accidentally cutting the phone line at AUSmotive HQ. It’s due to be fixed today, but like many of you we’ll be hitting the road later today on our way to spend Christmas with family.

A reminder to stay safe and to bring a calm and sharing attitude to the roads. Don’t forget it’s a double demerit period as well.

We’ll also be taking some time off until the second week in January and so any updates during that time are likely to be sporadic.

Wishing you all the best and thanks for your readership throughout the year.

[Pic: RedBull/Getty Images]

While watching the misery of the Wallabies’ demise at the hands of New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup we managed to catch a glimpse at the first episode from a three-part series on ABC1 about Australia’s history and infatuation with the motor car. Wide Open Road promises to explore the reasons why “the car has been tangled up in the social, political and economic fabric of Australia.”

If you missed the first episode you can catch up on ABC iView or via the program’s website. You’ll learn that in the early decades of the 20th century unofficial attempts to break the speed record for the Melbourne–Sydney drive on dusty tracks were commonplace. Nine hours was the benchmark, would you believe! You’ll also wonder why Francis Birtles, who spent much of 1928 driving his Bean 14 from London to Melbourne, isn’t revered as highly as the likes of pilot Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, who achieved fame for his solo flight from the Unites States to Australia in the same year.

The remaining episodes are due to air at 7:30pm on the following two Sundays (23 and 30 October). From the portions we saw last night we recommend finding the time to watch the show.

The world’s garage has passed one billion vehicles for the first time according research carried out by Wards Auto. The figures are based on 2010 data and tell us the United States heads the list when sorted by country, with a staggering 239.8 million motor vehicles.

The US numbers are put in perspective when compared against the emerging market of China, which has achieved its highest ranking, reaching second place but still a long way behind, with a bit over 78 million units. Japan sits third with just under 74 million vehicles.

Unsurprisingly the United States also tops the list when looking at each country’s vehicle-to-person ratio. With a ratio of 1:1.3, in theory, around 77% of Americans have a vehicle of some sort. In contrast, China’s ratio is 1:17.2 and India (20.8 million vehicles) sees just one in every 56.3 people with a vehicle.

Italy is ranked second behind the US for vehicle-to-person ratios (1:1.45) with France, Japan and the UK all roughly the same (1:1.7). Overall, the world population is 6.9 billion (1:6.75 vehicles to people).

[Source: WardsAuto]

UPDATE 20 August: Thanks to Jim Rutherford from the FCAI for pointing us in the direction of Australian figures from the ABS, which tell us there were 12.5 million passenger vehicles at last count. Based on the current population of 22.7 million Australia has a ratio of one vehicle for every 1.8 people.