[selfdrive]

What is the ratio of cars to per km of developed roads? Wait a minute, for that we would need to identify what percentage of our roads are really developed.

Just take the so called expressway between Mumbai and Pune as an example.

Another way to look at it is that we have 1000 people for every 22 cars. That is just too many, call Thanos!!

[V.Narayan]

Delhi proper has 22 million cars with a 11 million population. 2000 cars: 1000 people!!
Bangalore proper within its municipal limits has 8 million cars to 8 million people!!

I have no doubt India's car population will rise astronomically. But the roads.....

[Lobogris]

Originally Posted by coldice4u

Passenger car ownership growing to 175 per 1000 by 2040? No Sir, I dont ever see it happening. These are just some figures conjured up the PPT guys to sell something without knowing whats happening on the ground !

It will happen. As the poor become middle class and the lower middle class become upper middle class, they will purchase cars. Just take a look at how it happened in China. Once the minimum salary rises to around Rs 20,000 per month (or equivalent inflation adjusted), more people would be able to afford cars. We are still talking of just one in five or approximately one car per family.

Originally Posted by JediKnight

Statistics out of context can be misleading. India is a sea of poverty with islands of prosperity. These islands have much more cars per citizens. e.g. Chandigarh has almost as many vehicles as people.

These islands of prosperity will grow. Smaller towns are getting malls, restaurants, cars and highways. Tier 1 cities will become like developed countries' cities as far as people's incomes are concerned. Take a look at salaries in Shanghai as an example. Tier 2 cities will become like Tier 1 or today and so on.

Originally Posted by Santoshbhat

I find it quite believable. In 20 years time we may even exceed 175 cars per 1000 individuals. What worries me is how is the infrastructure going to keep pace with this kind of growth? With 10 times more vehicles on the road, with the kind of road manners and driving culture that we have, GOD SAVE US!

Some of these cars would be added in large cities but most will be in rural India. Currently there are few cars in rural areas. People there would graduate to cars from bikes.

Originally Posted by Knowall

Is this a case of we have less cars in India or our population numbers are way too high... Our cities are chocked Bangalore, Gurgaon, Mumbai and the list continues. What we need is not more cars but better public transportation to manage such a large population.

Agree with your overall point. Most of the growth will be in rural areas with at least half of the families having one car/ SUV by 2040.

[TNiranjanT]

Originally Posted by Lobogris

It will happen. As the poor become middle class and the lower middle class become upper middle class, they will purchase cars. Just take a look at how it happened in China. Once the minimum salary rises to around Rs 20,000 per month (or equivalent inflation adjusted), more people would be able to afford cars. We are still talking of just one in five or approximately one car per family.

I would have to respectfully challenge this view.

I'm not convinced that as an economy we would grow enough to have 175 cars per 1000 humans. That is a massive jump.

To form any opinion, as evidence I would like to firstly compare this to historic data in India to understand how this trend has developed (don't forget the population is still rising) and secondly I'd be keen to understand how the trend progressed in China for e.g. which is our closest comparison and interestingly where the population is stagnating because of their 1 child policy.

Also the true indication is how well spread these 175 cars are across the population. Not 1 person having 500 cars, i.e. not clustered around the rich and mighty.

[srishiva]

I need some clarification, US has 840 vehicles per 1000. 44% of these are supposed to be cars.
Now for India, is the current data the total number of registered vehicles or cars ?

[TNiranjanT]

Originally Posted by srishiva

I need some clarification, US has 840 vehicles per 1000. 44% of these are supposed to be cars.
Now for India, is the current data the total number of registered vehicles or cars ?

The article this discussion is based on says 840 cars (passenger) per 1000 in the USA. I'm assuming its the same for India.

Not sure where you got the 44% number - can you share source pls?

[srishiva]

Originally Posted by TNiranjanT

The article this discussion is based on says 840 cars (passenger) per 1000 in the USA. I'm assuming its the same for India.

Not sure where you got the 44% number - can you share source pls?

I just searched and and found something like that on web. Its total registered vehicles, and not everything has to be a passenger car.
Found this for 2016
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinfor...s/2016/mv1.cfm

only 111 million are passenger private cars. 143 million trucks that might include trucks used privately. So the total is still lesser than 268 million total vehicles that were registered.

In India, the number on wikipedia shows 44 vehicles per 1000. Now we might have majority of 2 wheelers and US very high majority of private vehicles.

[landcruiser123]

Originally Posted by TusharK

An International Energy Agency (IEA) report suggests that passenger car ownership in India is expected to grow by 775% over the next two decades. This means, India will have 175 cars per 1,000 citizens by 2040.

I doubt that we'll have 175 cars per 1000 people by 2040. Urban India is choked and people are not buying additional cars anymore. Rural India is simply very poor.

About 1% of the urban population are the group of people behind this 20 cars / 1000 people. Also, we've to consider senior citizens and students- most of whom don't drive.

Originally Posted by blackasta

Only way to solve this problem is to encourage the development of satellite towns and de centralize distribution of resources.

Not going to happen unless we have freeways like the US which cut through CBDs.

The Indian government should be worried about this statistic and invest quickly in public transport to discourage people from buying cars. Our country simply doesn't have the infrastructure to support too many cars.

[avishar]

Originally Posted by blackasta

I am sure we would get a surprising split if we take the metro cities vs rural / semi urban areas in picture.

That is indeed a very interesting point.

Let us look at the data:-

According to the Karnataka Government Transport website, there were as of October 2018:

• 1.49 million cars registered in Bangalore,
• 5.41 million two-wheeler registered in the city

If we round that off to 1.5 million cars and 5.5 million two-wheelers, then we have 7.0 million private vehicles registered in Bangalore. This is excluding trucks, lorries, buses, taxies, autos, out-city/state cars etc.

Source: http://transport.karnataka.gov.in/up...20Oct%2018.pdf

Couple of population websites on a Google search say that Bangalore's population in 2018 is estimated to be somewhere between 11.8 to 12.5 million (!).

If we take the population number as 12 million, then the per-capita ownership of cars come to 125 cars for every 1000 residents of Bangalore (1.5 million cars), so 6 times the national average.

There are also 458 two-wheeler for every 1000 residents of Bangalore, a very high number!


However, this cars per thousand is not the right metric for India, because we have a much larger minor-age population and our households are bigger. Therefore, it is better to look at it from the percentage of households who own a car in Bangalore. And if we take those numbers, the figures are closer to 500/1000 households, or at-least one in every 2 households owns a car, in Bangalore!



Alright, but what about some global cities?

London:

There are 2.6m cars registered in London. 54 per cent of London households have at
least one car.
• The proportion of households with one or more cars appears to have declined
slightly over the last few years, so in 2005/06 around 57 per cent had at least one
car.

Singapore

Singapore had about 600,000 private vehicles on the road at the end of last year. The city has a population of around 5.6 million.

New York

According to recent census estimates,[1] almost 1.4 million households in New York City own a car compared to 3.1 million total households. This means 45 percent of all households in the city own a car (and almost 3 percent that own three or more!). Ownership is lowest in Manhattan, where only 22 percent of households own a car, while ownership is highest in Staten Island where cars are owned by 83 percent of all households. Queens (62 percent) is also above the city average, while the Bronx (40 percent) and Brooklyn (44 percent) look more like the city as a whole.

Shanghai

Motorised vehicles (MVs):
3.3 million MVs
• MV ownership (2013):
97 MV/1,000 inhabitants

https://www.ifmo.de/files/publicatio...y_China_en.pdf

[GTO]

The statistic is an eye-opener, even if we already knew of similar numbers before. It tells me:

- India is the 4th largest car market in the world, and might be the 3rd largest in 5 years, but we are still a country with massive poverty. Even the crores of people who aren't living in poverty have severely restricted income levels.

- The vast headroom for growth. Is there potential? You bet. I think this potential will come from smaller towns & semi-urban or rural areas. The urban Indian is slowly getting fed up of car ownership, especially the millennial generation. Maruti has been bragging about how rural India is making up more & more of its sales.

- We are talking of just cars / 1000 citizens. However, let's bring in "vehicles / 1000 citizens" and I have no doubt that our numbers will look 20 times better. Reason = TWO-WHEELERS. We are the largest 2-wheeler market in the world.

- Based on the previous 2 points, I think 2-wheeler manufacturers have better potential than car manufacturers. Plus, there are many who can afford an Alto, but prefer a 2-wheeler because its way cheaper to own & run, plus you can zip through traffic and there are no parking issues. As we all know, the Nano didn't exactly convert 2-wheeler owners as expected.

- 2-wheeler manufacturers also have it good because I don't see the public transport infrastructure changing drastically. We are too slow. Heck, what has happened in the last 20 years? Superb highways, yes. But within cities - a couple of flyovers? And some rare bright spots by aggressive cities (e.g. Metro in Delhi).

[Axe77]

Originally Posted by GTO

-

We are talking of just cars / 1000 citizens. However, let's bring in "vehicles / 1000 citizens" and I have no doubt that our numbers will look 20 times better. Reason = TWO-WHEELERS. We are the largest 2-wheeler market in the world.

- Based on the previous 2 points, I think 2-wheeler manufacturers have better potential than car manufacturers. Plus, there are many who can afford an Alto, but prefer a 2-wheeler because its way cheaper to own & run, plus you can zip through traffic and there are no parking issues. As we all know, the Nano didn't exactly convert 2-wheeler owners as expected.

- 2-wheeler manufacturers also have it good because I don't see the public transport infrastructure changing drastically. We are too slow. Heck, what has happened in the last 20 years? Superb highways, yes. But within cities - a couple of flyovers? And some rare bright spots by aggressive cities (e.g. Metro in Delhi).

Two wheeler penetration indeed is at so many levels. In addition to the above and for a lot of the reasons you've mentioned, many car owners ALSO choose to keep an additional two wheeler for convenience, more so in B cities but also many congested metros.

Even in a city like Mumbai, despite owning a car as a necessity and a big bike as a hobby, my wife and I have seriously contemplated buying a basic scooter to potter around the local area. Despite the convenience of Uber, why travel for 45 mins when you can do the same in 12 - 15 mins. I see so many neighbours already using Activas and the like for precisely this reason in our condo where almost every family has two cars already.

[SmartCat]

Few more indicators:

1) BPCL/IOC/HPCL/RELIANCE are steadily investing in increasing refining capacity. Do a Google search for "BPCL capacity expansion" or "Indian oil capacity expansion". All these guys are roughly penciling in 10 - 12% per year growth in petrol/diesel consumption. Despite all that talk of EVs replacing IC powered vehicles.

2) BPCL/IOC/HPCL etc are aggressively appointing dealers. IOC is even advertising on Bangalore radio channels. The trio now have a dealer selection portal:
https://www.petrolpumpdealerchayan.in/

Oil PSUs to allot 65,000 petrol pumps: All you need to know if you are planning to apply for petrol pump dealership
https://www.firstpost.com/business/o...p-5624141.html

[selfdrive]

Originally Posted by landcruiser123

I doubt that we'll have 175 cars per 1000 people by 2040. Urban India is choked and people are not buying additional cars anymore. Rural India is simply very poor.

Originally Posted by GTO

Even the crores of people who aren't living in poverty have severely restricted income levels.
- The vast headroom for growth. Is there potential? You bet. I think this potential will come from smaller towns & semi-urban or rural areas. The urban Indian is slowly getting fed up of car ownership, especially the millennial generation.

One thing that we need to account for in these numbers:
- Sales of preowned cars from urban areas in rural areas.

The older vehicles which may not be re registered (say due to emission issues or the car being too old to drive here), mostly end up in rural areas if they do not have issues with parts availability and servicing. So we would end up seeing a lot of preowned marutis and toyotas in the rural areas, but very few Germans. Eventually that means more cars in those areas too.
Those whom we assume have restricted income levels would be happier to spare some cash for a preowned car than a buy a new smaller car on a loan.

I also hear from my friends in the collection industry that they have higher default ratios in rural areas and need to write off more there due to local muscle power/ political pressure.

This is about the legal route. How many other stories have we heard where SUVs (Pajeros/ Scorpios, etc) have been targetted for thefts only to be sold in the rural market. This may be a miniscule percentage at the moment (I also hope it stays that way), but it does add to the car population in the rural areas.

All these people in urban areas would ideally not want a replacement car. However, with the pathetic nature of public transport and infrastructure, they end up needing a car to protect them from pollution, weather conditions etc. One who is used to a car will find it extremely difficult to travel by two wheelers or buses/ metro. I have a few examples in my family too. So whatever gets reduced here will eventually be replaced anyway.

[CarNerd]

I don't think so... Delhi had around 32 lakh cars as of June 2017. The total number of registered vehicles was about 1.05 Crore.
http://https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/auto/miscellaneous/vehicle-numbers-cross-one-crore-mark-in-delhi/articleshow/58983958.cms

[CarNerd]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Delhi proper has 22 million cars with a 11 million population. 2000 cars: 1000 people!!

I don't think so... Delhi had around 32 lakh cars as of June 2017. The total number of registered vehicles was about 1.05 Crore. It's around 168 cars for 1000 people for a population of 1.9 crores.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/58983958.cms