'They' reckon there are around 1.2 billion licenced drivers on the road...(around).
There would be hell of a lot more vehicles, but you can only drive one car at a time, I'm only working it on my capabilities. So really, it's not about how many cars, it's about how many who drive.
A good percentage of drivers, hardly drive at all, most of the time it's public transport, a good percentage of vehicles these days are extremely fuel efficient, hybrid or progressing to battery. Mr BB is right, we seem to think of all these wonderful ways of getting around first, and how do deal with the waste issues last.
Most, just about all vehicles at the end of their life are junked, recycled or a few restored and put in sheds.
It's about how many drivers and how they use their vehicles, not how many vehicles there are. Lithium is good, but it's a finite resource. It's been a mineral used to control mental illness for years, still is in many cases, but it's not kind to organs in the human body.
Lithium is used in just about every storage, rechargeable and portable device these days.There seems to be enough of the resource to go around, at the moment.
But it all comes down to how many users there are when it comes to driving. And I'll never be one of these to jump in a personal driverless vehicle....what is the fun in that...what satisfaction is there in giving another driverless vehicle the finger for cutting you off.