Rates of car ownership in Asia varies significantly by country. Some nations like Singapore have very high taxes on vehicles which artificially depresses demands for cars relative to their GDP. Singapore has a world class public transportation system to account for the lower amount of cars. At the same time, Japan also has one of the world’s most efficient public transit networks and still has a high degree of car ownership.

A couple things worth noting on the graph below.

• The US is #4 in the world, but it also has a very high population.
• North Korea has a higher level of car ownership than Myanmar.

 

Global Rank	Country	Motor vehicles per
4	United States	809
15	Japan	588
39	South Korea	450
46	Malaysia	361
50	Taiwan	322
72	Thailand	206
93	Singapore	149
98	China	128
114	Hong Kong	77
116	Sri Lanka	76
124	Indonesia	69
144	Philippines	30
153	Vietnam	23
158	Laos	20
160	India	18
170	North Korea	11
173	Myanmar	7