Jeff Sparrow at Lit Hub:
On best estimates, there are some 270 million cars currently in the US, with 90 percent of households owning at least one. Most own several. The low fuel prices produced by the fracking boom encouraged the use of SUVs and trucks, which now account for more than 60 percent of vehicle sales.
Obviously, Americans aren’t the only people who drive cars. Throughout the developing world—particularly South and East Asia—car ownership continues to grow. Chinese customers, for example, bought some 28 million cars last year, a huge figure that actually represents a slight decline on recent trends.
Nevertheless, the US remains the spiritual home of car culture, the locus of a particular relationship with the automobile that was subsequently exported elsewhere.
more here.