The numbers do not show a full picture. A lot of people in Europe own a car but use it only occasionally -- going on holiday, weekend trip etc., and still use a public transport - which is well developed in most (even smaller) cities - for everyday commuting.
The statistics come from different sources and times, but that's what I have to work with and I don't think the true numbers are much different from this.
It's also important to note that the culture in America is quite different in Europe regarding personal space, freedom to drive endlessly and on your own time, and having the place to do these things. Europeans are used to adjusting themselves to the train's schedule, leaving the party because the last train is coming, standing on the platform and waiting for it to arrive, and cancelling plans when the train drivers union decides to go on strike. These things frustrate an American, and that is because cars have been around for about 100 years in America and people have come to expect the freedoms that cars bring them.
German public transportation is also excellent and if they aren’t considered to have a significant domestic car industry, I’m not sure who else does qualify.
I live in Germany, but I'm not German. I need a car to drive to my home country. It's cheap, fast and comfortable in some ways. Other than that my car is rarely used. To work I go by public transport that I can supplement with kick scooter. Or by bike via shared bikes.
If I would be sure that I will not move back to home country I would probably look to sell the car.
In the US, Audi, BMW and similar European brands are intentionally marketed as a mid to high luxury vehicles to preserve their brand mystique. None of these companies sell mass-market cars in the US in the same tier as mass-market cars by Toyota, GM, etc. Most of these brands do sell mass-market cars in Europe, though.
It's also worth noting that in the US, most families have had multiple cars due to the lack of alternative transit options, and so families of modest means buy lower cost vehicles as a result.
Only recently are multi-car households are seeing a big uptick in places like the UK [1], and in many developed urban areas of Europe, the car is used by families as a "weekend getaway" vehicle, not a daily commuter. When you only have to buy one car, you might be able to afford more luxury.
And in Europe, too. Sure, America is huge and there are a lot of cars, but in Germany (as an example) there are still over 500 cars for every 1000 people.
This is not the reality that most Europeans live in. Europeans who live in major cities might enjoy their good public transport options, but in minor cities, towns and rural areas, public transport is crap to non-existent.
US has 800 cars per 1000 people, but Italy and Spain have 650/1000 and even Poland, which is significantly poorer than US, has over 700 cars per 1000 people. In Europe, car ownership is only slightly less of a necessity than it is in the US, and I think if you look at the data that measure cars not per capita, but per household, the gap in car ownership between US and European countries would be even smaller.
Europeans do just fine with multipurpose vehicles and regular small cars. You dont need a Straßenpanzer to bring two wee kids and a few grocery bags around.
I have lived in Germany for five years and this is absolutely true. Even many students have cars, which was completely surreal/absurd to me, since I didn't have any fellow students in The Netherlands with a car (only bikes). I'd cycle to work every day (22 km for the round trip), I'd regularly get comments from Germans that I was crazy to cycle that distance through all weather.
Watching German politics more closely during those years, I have seen that choices between: is better for car owners, is better for something else, gets decided in favor of is better for car owners 90% of the times. Heck, even some members of the Green Party are very cozy with the car industry (e.g. Kretschmann).
I live in my country and I know some things about it. Germany allows people to sell old cars in Eastern Europe. My country will take those cars without any limits. This is the Europe that I'm living in.
Crossing the street in the morning is an exercise of how long can you hold your breath.
To be fair to the Europeans who own cars (In Europe, for example, the median national share of car owners was 79 percent [1]) life as a tourist is easy; the entire city is doing everything to make your car-free life work.
And every time I've touristed in Europe it's been great wandering around without a car (the times I've driven the backcountry with a car have been fun, too).
But all the people I've worked with when in Europe have a car (sure, it might be small) and drive when it makes sense, which is often.
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