Passenger vehicles in the United States

Note: this article adopts the U.S. Department of Transportation's definition of a passenger vehicle, to mean a car or truck, used for passengers, excluding buses and trains.

The United States is home to the second largest passenger vehicle market of any country in the world second now to China. Overall, there were an estimated 263.6 million registered passenger vehicles in the United States in 2015. This number, along with the average age of vehicles, has increased steadily since 1960. The United States is also home to three large vehicle manufacturers: General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Chrysler, which have historically been referred to as the "Big Three".

The United States Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration as well as the National Automobile Dealers Association have published data in regard to the total number of vehicles, growth trends, and ratios between licensed drivers, the general population, and the increasing number of vehicles on American roads. Overall passenger vehicles have been outnumbering licensed drivers since 1972 at an ever increasing rate, while light trucks and vehicles manufactured by foreign marques have gained a larger share of the automotive market in the United States. In 2001, 70% of Americans drove to work in cars.New York City is the only locality in the country where more than half of all households do not own a car (the figure is even higher in Manhattan, over 75%; nationally, the rate is 8%).

There are two types of sources for vehicle registration data, known as Vehicles in Operation (VIO): governmental sources such as the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), and commercial, for-profit companies such as IHS and Hedges & Company.

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