12:02AM
Most expansive number on global auto population yet
Sunday, November 13, 2011 at 12:02AM Plenty of recent talk about reaching 7B people ("crack out yer Soylent Green!"), but here's Bill Ford saying the number of cars in the world - just now reaching 1B - will quadruple to 4B by 2050.
No, there won't be enough oil for all that transpo, or - more truthfully - we won't want to go to that effort.
So the age of post-gas-combustion awaits. Ultimat driver is oil availability, but proximate driver is local air pollution.
Reader Comments (1)
I doubt the World can support 2 billion automobiles, not to talk about 4 billion. I doubt we'll see 4 billion automobiles by 2050.
China is emphasising metro construction in a very big way, because they know they cannot afford an American-style car driven society. (Shanghai is already the longest network in the World*). India is following suit with metros in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore etc.
This is one area in which American leadership is needed, but is lacking. If we are going to wean the World away from the internal combustion engine - now is the time to start. The systems and infrastructure need to be planned and installed and the relevant research needs to be initiated.
Right now there doesn't seem to be a sense of urgency. We can't be confident the problem will be solved in a scant thirty years (we'll waste the period from 2011 - 2020 arguing over global warming and other irrelevant issues).
*Depends on how you measure.